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Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies
Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2019
Articles
Front Pages
DAVID P. WICK
Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum – A Case Study in Social & Religious Motives at the Birth of the Roman Empire
ROBERT B. KEBRIC
Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon by Day and Night
NAZLI TARAZ & EBRU YILMAZ
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey and its Architectural Representation as a Memory Space
MOHAMED HAMDAOUI & BRAHIM BOUAYAD
Determinants and Effects of Vertical Integration on the Performance of Moroccan Manufacturing
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The Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies ISSN NUMBER: 2241-794X- DOI: 10.30958/ajms
Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2019
Download the entire issue (PDF)
Front Pages
i-x
Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum – A Case Study in Social & Religious Motives at the Birth of the Roman Empire
David P. Wick
1
Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon by Day and Night
Robert B. Kebric
11
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey and its Architectural Representation as a Memory Space
Nazli Taraz & Ebru Yilmaz
33
Determinants and Effects of Vertical Integration on the Performance of Moroccan Manufacturing
Mohamed Hamdaoui & Brahim Bouayad
57
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies Editorial and Reviewers’ Board
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Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER (Economics).
Dr. Yannis Stivachtis, Director, Center for European & Mediterranean Affairs (CEMA) & Director, International Studies Program Virginia Tech-Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA (Politics & International Affairs).
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Dr. Hiteshkumar Parmar, Academic Member, ATINER & Associate Professor, P. D. Malaviya College of Commerce, India.
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• Vice President of Publications: Dr Zoe Boutsioli • General Managing Editor of all ATINER's Publications: Ms. Afrodete Papanikou • ICT Managing Editor of all ATINER's Publications: Mr. Kostas Spyropoulos • Managing Editor of this Journal: Ms Fani Balaska (bio)
Reviewers’ Board Click Here
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President's Message
All ATINER‟s publications including the e-journals are open access
without any costs (submission, processing, publishing, open access paid by
authors, open access paid by readers etc) and are independent of the
presentations made at any of the many small events (conferences,
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organized by ATINER throughout the year. The intellectual property rights of
the submitted papers remain with the author.
Before you submit, please make sure your paper meets some basic
academic standards, which include proper English. Some articles will be
selected from the numerous papers that have been presented at the various
annual international academic conferences organized by the different
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The plethora of papers presented every year will enable the editorial board
of each journal to select the best ones, and in so doing, to produce a quality
academic journal. In addition to papers presented, ATINER encourages the
independent submission of papers to be evaluated for publication.
The current issue of the Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies (AJMS)
is the first issue of the fifth volume (2019). The reader will notice some
changes compared with the previous issues, which I hope is an improvement.
An effort has been made to include papers which extent to different issues of
Mediterranean studies. Two papers are related to history; one to economics
and the other to architecture – urban planning.
Gregory T. Papanikos, President
Athens Institute for Education and Research
Athens Institute for Education and Research
A World Association of Academics and Researchers
Conference Fees
Conference fees vary from 400€ to 2000€ Details can be found at: https://www.atiner.gr/2019fees
Social and Educational Program The Social Program Emphasizes the Educational Aspect of the Academic Meetings of Atiner.
Greek Night Entertainment (This is the official dinner of the conference)
Athens Sightseeing: Old and New-An Educational Urban Walk
Social Dinner
Mycenae Visit
Exploration of the Aegean Islands
Delphi Visit
Ancient Corinth and Cape Sounion
Important Dates
Abstract Submission: 4 March 2019
Acceptance of Abstract: 4 Weeks after Submission
Submission of Paper: 18 March 2019
Academic Members Responsible for the Conference
Dr. Yannis Stivachtis, Director, Center for European & Mediterranean Affairs and Director & Professor, International Studies Program Virginia Tech – Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA.
Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos, Honorary Professor, University of Stirling, UK.
Dr. David Philip Wick, Professor of History, Gordon College, USA.
12th Annual International Conference on Mediterranean Studies 15-18 April 2019, Athens, Greece
The Center for European & Mediterranean Affairs organizes the 12th Annual International
Conference on Mediterranean Studies, 15-18 April 2019, Athens, Greece. The aim of the symposium is to give the opportunity to all academics and researchers to exchange their teaching and researching knowledge and experience. You may participate as stream leader, presenter of one paper, chair a session or observer. Please submit a proposal using the form available (https://www.atiner.gr/2019/FORM-MDT.doc).
ix
Athens Institute for Education and Research
A World Association of Academics and Researchers
Conference Fees Conference fees vary from 400€ to 2000€
Details can be found at: https://www.atiner.gr/2019fees
Academic Member Responsible for the Conference
Dr. Bettina Koch, Head, Politics & International Affairs Unit, ATINER & Associate Professor of Political Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA.
Important Dates
Abstract Submission: 18 February 2019
Acceptance of Abstract: 4 Weeks after Submission
Submission of Paper: 20 May 2019
17th Annual International Conference on Politics 17-20 June 2019, Athens, Greece
The Politics & International Affairs Unit of the ATINER will hold its 17th Annual International
Conference on Politics, 17-20 June 2019, Athens, Greece sponsored by the Athens Journal of Social Sciences. The aim of the conference is to bring together academics, researchers and professionals in private and public organizations and governments of Politics and International Affairs and other related disciplines. You may participate as stream leader, presenter of one paper, chair of a session or observer. Please submit a proposal using the form available (https://www.atiner.gr/2019/FORM-POL.doc).
Social and Educational Program The Social Program Emphasizes the Educational Aspect of the Academic Meetings of Atiner.
Greek Night Entertainment (This is the official dinner of the conference)
Athens Sightseeing: Old and New-An Educational Urban Walk
Social Dinner
Mycenae Visit
Exploration of the Aegean Islands
Delphi Visit
Ancient Corinth and Cape Sounion More information can be found here: https://www.atiner.gr/social-program
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
1
Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum –
A Case Study in Social & Religious Motives at the
Birth of the Roman Empire
By David P. Wick
The Emperor Augustus would believe at the end of his life that he had rekindled at least a
functioning image of the archaic Roman religious spirit in the major arteries of his empire
and at least in his city. His contemporaries seem to have agreed that they could see this
happening, even when they acknowledged it as an act of propaganda in some sort.
Modern scholars have been more inclined to see through it. This study approaches the
question of the ‘new era’ after Actium from both the viewpoints of religious anxiety in
original sources and also what roles or avenues of approach the newly-named Augustus
might have had to work with, politically and in popular religion or moral reform. His
earliest role, as ‘avenger of Caesar’, would have been entirely destructive and preserved
the violence of feeling that rose in the Civil Wars. Role-playing Alexander, the ‘Hercules’
of popular myth, even ultimately a devotion to Apollo, all seemed inadequate. Instead, his
road led him to create the groundwork for an attempt at a culture-wide ‘religious revival’,
a construct we do not normally think native to the classical world, and which the sequel to
this study hopes to pursue as it unfolded in actual practice.
Keywords: Ancient Studies, Roman Religion, political/social history, Augustus, Early
Roman Empire.
Introduction
The Emperor Augustus would believe at the end of his life that he had
rekindled at least a functioning image of the archaic Roman religious spirit in the
major arteries of his empire and at least in his city. His contemporaries seem to
have agreed that they could see this happening, even when they acknowledged it
as an act of propaganda in some sort. Modern scholars have been more inclined to
see through it.
Most modern attempts, in fact, to understand what are usually called the
"Augustan religious reforms" seem to begin as acts of external political or
rhetorical criticism -- the dissection of public language (including public activity
treated as language) diagnosed as propaganda, x-rayed by post-modernist
semantics, and thinly sliced to reveal layers of subtext on the operating table. I
propose in this brief study to hazard the experiment of beginning to reverse that
approach. If we were to assume for the sake of argument that Augustus really
valued (or had come to value) a change in the religious fabric of his times, and so
watch some of his propaganda in action -- suspending our deconstructing
tendencies long enough to take it on its own terms, would we understand it
differently? Would we write about Augustus differently? There is a useful
Professor, Gordon College, USA.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Wick: Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum… ngineering of Belief & the Pax Deorum……
2
preamble for this experiment in C.S. Lewis's inaugural Cambridge address:
"The change is this. In all previous ages that I can think of the principal aim of
rulers, except at rare and short intervals, was to keep their subjects quiet, to
forestall or extinguish widespread excitement and persuade people to attend
quietly to their several occupations. And on the whole their subjects agreed
with them. They even prayed (in words that sound curiously old-fashioned) to
be able to live `a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty' and `pass their
time in rest and quietness'. But now the organization of mass excitement
seems to be almost the normal organ of political power. We live in an age of
`appeals', `drives', and `campaigns'. Our rulers have become like
schoolmasters and are always demanding `keenness'. And you notice that I
am guilty of a slight archaism in calling them `rulers'. `Leaders' is the modern
word. I have suggested elsewhere that this is a deeply significant change of
vocabulary. Our demand upon them has changed no less than theirs on us.
For of a ruler one asks justice, incorruption, diligence, perhaps clemency; of a
leader, dash, initiative, and (I suppose) what people might call `magnetism' or
`personality' (Lewis 1969).
Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum
In 9 B.C. the Roman province of Asia, hurried into action perhaps by the
dedication of the Ara Pacis in Rome, finally got round to sending the Emperor
Augustus an honorary crown. The politically active there had bandied this little
idea about in the assembly for all of two decades; the occasion by now was not
momentous. But with the crown came a rather more startling proposal from the
Roman governor himself: the year, in those parts at least, was henceforth to begin
on the birth date of Augustus. The text of presentation that accompanied the
provincial crown is the usual Hellenistic servility -- men of the world gladly
reduced to childlike dependence on a marvelous benefactor (Ehrenberg and Jones,
Dittenberger 1905, Lewis and Reinhold 1966). The Roman governor's letter is
different, thoughtful and oddly emotional:
"We could justly hold it (the birthday of Augustus) to be equivalent to the
beginning of all things, and he has restored to serviceability, if not to its
natural state, every form that had become imperfect and fallen into
misfortune, and he has given a different aspect to the whole world, which
blithely would have embraced its own destruction if Caesar had not been born
for the common benefit of all. Therefore people would be right to consider
this to have been the beginning of the breath of life for them, which has set a
limit to regrets for having been born" (Johnson et al. 1961, Price 1984).1
Augustus was faced, during the central years of his reign, with the perplexing
1Price is better with the details than with the feeling of the evidence he handles in my view, but
has some enlightening points to make about the role of Roman provincial magistrates in
personalizing and even Romanizing the Hellenic view of Augustus.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
3
problem of changing from a ‗leader‘ (in that sense of the word which my opening
quotation used) into a ‗ruler‘. A leader, as long as he lives up to the demands of his
trade, gives in himself definition to his followers. They are his. A ruler, on the
other hand, if he is to accomplish anything must have a nation -- a people with
somehow or other a definition of their own, a business to go about, a character of
their own to express. When those things are dissociated from him and prove
workable both the ruler and the people are far freer. He can regulate their business
by the definition and judge them by it. If they stray from it he can try to recall
them. They can (in theory) judge him by it as well. And all this is dependent, of
course, on the definition being a livable, workable one. If the people cannot live by
the definition without constantly betraying it, or alienating the gods of their
experience, or being destroyed by outsiders or each other, then life is intolerable.
Octavian had been a leader. Augustus, once again, was faced with the
problem of getting the Roman people to go back to being the Roman People when
all the validity of that old definition seemed hopelessly discredited. Romans
defined themselves by various kinds of authority and their pietas – their internal
moral dedication and affection as well as their outward duty – toward it. But
Roman law had lost the venerable old character it seemed to possess in the
confident day of Polybius. Since the time of Sulla it seemed capable of
accommodating any arbitrary conqueror's scheme of life and could change all out
of recognition on a whim. Roman pietas had no longer any secure object -- Caesar,
Pompey, Cicero, Brutus, Antony, Octavian all claimed real pietas was pietas
toward them. They were Rome, and spoke with her exclusive authority no matter
if they put their headquarters in Gaul or Greece, or began to resemble Asian
demigods. Instead of the comforting old libertas (freedom because authority said
one had it, and set the limits, and allowed one in return to have a certain say in the
authority), there was the new liberty of a world without definition. One could,
given the opportunity, do or say anything, but nothing that defined life in a world
of Roman-ness was certain any more.
The young Octavian had flourished in that wild world. He rode his gift for
improvisation and the practical skills of his friends to mastery of it. He also used
propaganda, as the contestants in a world of splintered authority always will. But
as he matured and found himself with a victory to consolidate he went through a
rejection of the earlier factioned, formless era -- a rejection which increasingly
resembled a religious conversion. Augustus came to be driven (often if we can
trust his biographers to the point of exhaustion) by the belief that most of his world
would disintegrate unless he could rebuild the life and fire in the old definition of
Romanitas, put it back into his people, and make it endure. (Jeanmaire 1924, Scott
1933)2
2There was of course the Antonine alternative: a universalist, theocratic new model of empire
without nationalisms or character after the imputed later fashion of Alexander. Rome was by any
such scheme as likely as not to become just another province, or even a subsidiary one, for it should
have to compete by less friendly rules with the sophisticated old cultures and better geo-political
sites of the East. Antony and Cleopatra seem to have played this inferiority for all it was worth, as
Mithridates had before them. In some sense this came true in the generations after Constantine, but
my present point is how often writers on the propaganda wars often fail to note how widespread was
the certainty in Cicero's day that the shift back to eastward was happening then. See e.g. Suetonius,
Vol. 5, No. 1 Wick: Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum… ngineering of Belief & the Pax Deorum……
4
Propaganda (which I understand strictly in this article as the repetition of a
statement forcibly and by public demonstration until it begins to achieve actuality
in the living world) was one of his best tools. Best, first of all, because he knew it
well. His propaganda wars with Antony and the assassins in the forties and thirties
of the previous era are too much written about to need any reintroduction here.
(Charlesworth 1933, Scott 1933, Jeanmaire 1924, Tarn 1932) Many of the articles
that treat them are so interested in (and suspicious of) the fact that he won the
propaganda war that they fail to notice how much he began in the end to resemble
and to be defined by the things he said about himself.
Because I want to concentrate on a few central acts of belief definition,
‗propaganda‘ if you wish, during his central reign as Augustus, I have less space
here to discuss this earlier growing re-definition (I had almost said "conversion")
of Octavian's character. Aside from antagonism to Antony's Hellenistic theocracy
and its cult of Alexander there were, I think, three parts to it. These were, briefly:
A tension in his adolescence between the enormously charismatic, capable
Julius Caesar and his reliable, neo-conservative old guardian Philippus competing
for the place of what moderns call a "father figure"3. Caesar won the early battles
(in this war of definition by auctoritas) but Philippus had the final victory. The
beginnings of a turning point in this struggle may be detectable during the crucial
month of April, 44 B.C., when Octavian met his stepfather and mother in Cumae
on the road to Rome, and his clash with destiny. Philippus had opposed his going
to Rome, and continued doubtful that any good could come of taking up Caesar's
legacy. The tone with which he introduced the young man to political
acquaintances in the neighborhood is significant. "Octavius was with me here;"
Cicero reported, "very complimentary and very friendly. His friends called him
Caesar, but Philippus did not, and so I did not either"4. In the explosion of popular
politics that followed, Philippus remained in the shadows. His only remaining
major act (of which we are aware) was a religious dedication. An interesting result
of this (traceable at length in a study of its own) is Octavian's gradual movement in
choice of guardian deities from Alexander (of whom Caesar made so much), to
Alexander's patron Hercules as conqueror (Antony had already appropriated
Alexander's other deity Dionysus), thence toward Hercules as defender of
Julius Caesar lii, 3 and lxxix, 3. Lily Ross Taylor suggests both stories were part of the ecumenical
propaganda of Antony (Divinity of the Roman Emperor (1931), p. 3 ff, and for the coins pp. 267 ff.
and p. 122, no. 15. Cf. Plutarch, Antony, 4, 26, 33, 43, 36, 60. Dio Cassius XLVIII, xxxix, 2.
Appian, Civil War, III, iii. Pompeius Trogus XXXVIII, v. 3Philippus had been father-in-law to Cato, and one of the consuls who in 56 opposed the
candidacies (and general policies) of Pompey and Crassus, only to find themselves overwhelmed in
the voting by Caesar's veterans. Cicero, Ad Att. IV, viiia, 2; Ad Quint. Frat. II, iv, 6. Dio Cassius
XXXIX, xxvii-xxxi. Appian, Civil War II, xvii, xviii. Plutarch, Pompey 51-52; Crassus 14-15;
Caesar 21; Cato 41-42. Philippus by all the accounts attempted to prevent Octavian joining the
power-struggle in Rome after Caesar's death, but also made sure he had good "republican" advice
when it became obvious where his ward was heading. Velleius Paterculus II, lix-lx. Appian, Civ.
Wars III, ii. On Philippus' political complexion in general, see Gruen (1974, pp. 146 f., 296 f., 334
f). 4Cicero, Ad Att. XIV, xii, 2.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
5
common humanity and the human arts, (Mazzolani 1970, Dodds 1973)5 and so to
the Muses, and finally to Apollo. The last stages of this journey were very likely
due to Philippus, who under the Augustan programme of temple restoration chose
to build his own to Hercules and the Muses.6 To Apollo I shall very shortly return.
Secondly, Augustus found himself defined by his role as the Avenger of
Caesar. On the surface this is obvious -- Octavian needed the pose for legitimacy
and respect as he built up his power in the early years. And yet wouldn't Caesar's
avenger be expected to reinstate his policies to stay legitimate? Augustus was
forced by his increasing belief in the romantic old values of neo-conservatives like
Philippus and Cicero to opt instead for the role of avenger pure and simple. The
stain of Caesar's death had to be cleansed for reasons other than the rightness of his
plans for Rome. An answer to this dilemma was part of the third factor.
At the center of the things that drove Augustus throughout his life was a deep
and increasing anxiety about the state of pax deorum -- both his and Rome's.
Warde Fowler, who has seldom been bettered on such subjects, once defined this
in a way that seems especially compatible with Augustus' behavior. For the
purposes of this article, the phrase pax deorum will mean:
"... -- the right relation between man and various manifestations of the Power,
... and the machinery by which it was secured was the ius divinum. We shall
not be very far wrong if we say that it was Augustus' aim to re-establish the
pax by means of the ius; ... the idea that unless the divine inhabitants were
properly propitiated, they would not do their part in supporting the human
inhabitants in all their doings and interests" (Fowler 1911: 431).
7
Just why Augustus nurtured so primary an anxiety (and at the end of his life
perhaps a pessimism) in this matter is a large question, but I offer a few brief
suggestions. A person naturally prone to accident and sickness would in the
classical world have been exposed to a great deal of talk about his relationship to
the divinities -- it would have started young and continued throughout his life.
Then, too, the antiquarian but rather Hellenized neo-conservative movement to
which Philippus, Cicero and Maecenas belonged placed a high value on the piety
of the rural Italians who were still scrupulous about the gods of farm and hearth.
Even if the gods were figments (as Cicero seemed sometimes willing to believe)
the old attitudes were conducive to those bluff, honest, frugal virtues that were
supposed to have made Rome great. And the survival of those as targets of living
belief in the world after Actium was perhaps evidence in turn that the gods did
5The trail of comparative character attributed to Hercules here can be traced through the Hellenistic
and into the classical era. Cf. Cicero, de Officiis III, v, 25; Isocrates, Philippics, 109; Plato,
Symposium, 177B. Seneca, de Beneficiis I, xiii, 1-3 suggests the emotional image was transmitted,
still consistently, to the later Julio-Claudian world. 6Suetonius, Augustus, 29.
7Another remark from the same context is worth quoting as well, since it strikes Augustus' own
maneuvering on the borderlands of divinity with a fine and unpolitical stress: "the new element [the
divinity of Augustus] may be defined as in Rome (and in Italy too, as far as his own wish could
limit it) nothing more than the encouragement of the belief in him, and loyalty to him as the restorer
of the pax deorum", p. 438. Nothing more is claimed in the Res Gestae than that.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Wick: Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum… ngineering of Belief & the Pax Deorum……
6
exist.
That same group of semi-antiquarian social critics was also conscious of a
new sense of guilt or sin in the fabric of human society, real or imagined, that
seems to have seeped into the air of Italy steadily since the age of Sulla and the
Gracchi (Ogilvie 1969)8. In tumultuous times it was all very well to make heroes
of suicides to principle like Cato, but it left those still living in quieter years
uncomfortably aware that they had betrayed friends, or vows or principles of their
own, or simply hidden away to avoid similar fates. The poet Horace, at once a
distant friend of, and daring critic of, the new regime had a habit of sounding this
note periodically and pointedly among his chattier and more personally reflective
publications:
Roman you will pay for your forefathers‘ sins
Till you rebuild gods‘ temples from ruins,
Roofs of worm-eaten oak,
Statues filthy with smoke.
To be below the gods your rule defends
To this fix all beginnings and all ends.
Gods take a heavy fee
From wailing Italy…9
Augustus seems not only to have undergone a conversion of his own on
matters of deity and definition of life, but to have shared with this group an
interest in the general subject. The pax deorum of Rome itself needed healing.
He set more store by his own initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries than one
might have expected from a Roman of his public character (Jones 1970)10
. A
similar initiation, on Italian soil, appeared for the purification of the hero of the
Aeneid, a poem which must have been much discussed at every stage of its
composition in the Augustan circle (Fowler 1911, Mazzolani 1970)11
.
And at the end of all this were created, as its solution, the Ludi Saeculares
of 17 B.C. ―Games‖ is translation of ―ludi‖ in this case which misses the whole
significance of the phenomenon, and ―festival‖ is not much better. My aim in
the sequel study to this – the study for which this sets the stage – is to examine
the attempt by Augustus to achieve the phenomenon itself by a very familiar
kind of spiritual engineering. What he would achieve in fact can be followed in
8Even in the view of a commentor so detached as Horace: "You will pay for the sins of your
ancestors [delicta maiorum], Romans, until you repair the ruined temples of the gods, and the
images begrimed with smoke", Odes III, vi, 1. For a tangible example of Horace's worry, Nepos,
Atticus XX, 3. The theme is a recurrent one in Livy, sometimes breaking into conscious "asides"
(III, xx, 5; VI, xli, 8). 9Horace, Odes, III, vi, ll 1-8, the translation this time from P. Levi, Horace: a Life (New York,
1998). 10
Jones also quotes, without fully catching its spirit, the stanza from the Carmen Saeculare in which
Horace (or better Augustus, I suspect) agonizes over "generations fertile in guilt" and almost
manages to drag the lex maritandis visibly into the worship. The bachelors of the Roman political
elite, after all, were present for once.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
7
the social history of his later reign, and the scandals surrounding names like
Julia, Tiberius and Ovid are the beginnings of the critique of that achievement.
A Note on the Purpose of This Study, Here and in the Parts Following
Over the last, largely secularizing, century of classical scholarship the
disagreements of Christian and non-Christian scholars in the study of ancient
religion have been – unsurprisingly – numerous. To my eye at least, what have
been far more curious have been some of the points on which Christian and non-
Christian classical scholarship have seemed contented to agree.
The purpose of this study is to examine, using as lenses a series of small,
related test cases clustered all round one of these interesting but seemingly non-
controversial issues, and to ask whether, in the magnanimity of their agreement,
scholars (including those attempting to operate from a perspective in which a
culture‘s faith definitions taken as important or even critical rather than as
distanced curios) have not missed a critical point or two in the nature of the human
being, and of ancient Greco-Roman religious belief, and – particularly – in the
relevance of the early Christian understanding of those two and how it has affected
the way we write about, the way we think we analyze the Classical era.
The particular target on which I hope to concentrate a few experimental
spotlights is that complex of beliefs, doctrines and feelings that revolve around the
Christian (and covenantal Judaic or even Islamic) idea of sin – sin itself propter,
guilt, repentance, contrition, absolution and renewal. There was a great deal of talk
about these in the classical Greek, and especially the classical Roman worlds, but
almost every major text on the internal religious feelings of either culture, or of the
two combined, assure us that we must not understand ancient Greek or Roman
religious acts or talk about these issues in Christian terms, or even in terms that
Christian thinkers would find natural. ―Whoever tries to measure ancient religion
by Christian yardsticks will be deceive himself or retire baffled,‖ remarks Eric
Robertson Dodds in one of the classic simple pontifical introductions to the subject
(and by a scholar unusually sensitive to nuances of belief in which ancient
Christian and non-Christian hearts really did seem to be responding to the same
things in the same way). He goes on…
―There are large areas of Christian experience which have no true counterpart
in the classical age of Greece. For example, the concepts of sin and redemption,
central in Christianity, are simply missing from the vocabulary of that age: there
are plenty of words for ‗guilt‘ and ‗wrongdoing,‘ but if we translate them ‗sin‘ we
nearly always import a false implication‖ (Dodds 1972: 140).12
I could unnecessarily multiply this confident assertion with an echo from the
introduction to almost any other modern text on the religious world in which
Christianity first appeared. The cumulative effect on students of the interaction
between paganism and early Christianity has been predictable: both Christian and
non-Christian scholars generally begin somewhere close to the assumption that
Christianity had first to create the sense of sin and the need for an experience of
12
Other concepts similarly false when ‗imported‘ into the ancient religious understanding include
any concept of love between God or gods and humankind, and any internal record of religious
growth in the manner of Augustine or Kierkegaard.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Wick: Augustus and the Problem of the Pax Deorum… ngineering of Belief & the Pax Deorum……
8
redemption in its audience of potential converts, and then to satisfy it once it had
been created. Fundamentalist classical scholarship has often concentrated
consequently on the fact of sin in the classical Roman or Greco-Roman lifestyle
(frequently with luridly exaggerated details) and then emphasized the ‗bully‘ style
of preaching when it could be found among the most aggressively vocal of the
early church fathers. More ‗liberal‘ Christian scholarship has, like most post-
modernist study of religion, tended toward emphasizing the aesthetic
‗transformation‘ (a favorite word) of ancient religious feeling or experience by
early Christian miracles, moral or hagiographical preaching, heroes or ritual.
Everett Ferguson, author of the most literate and nuanced recent survey of
ancient religion and the environment of belief in which Christianity arose, makes –
or tries to make – this lack of a sin-concept a positive distinctive in Christianity,
arguing insistently that the ancient was so clueless about guilt and redemption that
even penitential and regenerative rituals like the various ‗mysteries‘ popular both
in classical Greece and the early Roman empire were in their essence unconnected
with ‗moral renewal‘, and that (unlike Christian baptism) nothing in these
ceremonies of purification and rebirth effected any but a few of the most
intellectual pagan consciences (Ferguson 1993: 280ff).
Conclusions
To re-examine all of that might require a book. My proposal here is more
modest – to suggest we have been too quick to make those assumptions, and to
look in the second and third parts of this study at a few episodes in the career
of the Roman reformer and emperor Augustus as he attempted in his later
career to find ways to stabilize or protect his new empire. Bearing this
scholarly agreement in mind, we may find it might have startled Augustus. It
should not be necessary to point out that we will be examining a period prior to
(but only a fraction earlier than) the great formative events described in the
Christian gospels, that we are examining a period that must have made its
religious definitions and commitments without being influenced by them.
Acknowledgements
This material written for presentation at the ATINER 13th
Annual
International Conference on History & Archaeology: From Ancient to Modern,
June-July 2015, and revised with feedback from that presentation. My thanks
to all who contributed, however informally.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
9
References
Modern References
Charlesworth MP (1933) Some Fragments of the Propaganda of Mark Antony. Classical
Quarterly 27(3/4): 172-177.
Dittenberger W (1905) Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae [Corpus posts Selections].
Leipzig: Hirzel.
Dodds ER (1972) The Ancient Concept of Progress. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ehrenberg V, Jones AHM (1949) Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and
Tiberius UK: Oxford UP.
Ferguson E. (1993) Backgrounds of Early Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Fowler WW (1911) Religious Experience of the Roman People. Fili-Quarian Classics.
Gruen E (1974) The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Jeanmaire H (1924) La Politique Religieuse d'Antoine et Cléopatre [The religious policy
of Antoine and Cleopatra]. Revue Archéologique 19: 241-261.
Johnson AC, Coleman-Norton P, Bourne F (eds) (1961) Ancient Roman Statutes. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Jones AHM (1970) Augustus. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Levi P (1998) Horace: a Life. New York: Tauris Parke Paperbacks.
Lewis CS (1969) De Descriptione Temporum [Description of the Times]. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lewis N, Reinhold M (eds) (1966) Roman Civilization. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Mazzolani LS (1970) The Idea of the City in Roman Thought. Indiana: Indiana University
Press.
Ogilvie RM (1969) The Romans and their Gods in the Age of Augustus. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company.
Price SRF (1984) Rituals and Power: the Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Scott K (1933) The Political Propaganda of 44 - 30 B.C. Bergamo: American Academy in
Rome.
Tarn WW (1932) Alexander Helios and the Golden Age. Journal of Roman Studies 22(2):
135-160.
Taylor LR (1931) Divinity of the Roman Emperor. Ayer Co Pub.
Ancient References (each locus in notes as appropriate)
Appian, Civil Wars
Augustus, Res Gestae
Cicero, Ad Atticus, Ad Quintus, De Officiis,
Dio Cassius, Histories
Horace, Odes
Livy, Histories (esp bk. III)
Nepos, Lives (esp. Atticus)
Plutarch, Antony, Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, Cato
Pompeius Trogus, History of Rome
Seneca, de Beneficiis
Suetonius, Augustus, Julius Caesar
Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
11
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
11
Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes:
A Beacon by Day and Night
By Robert B. Kebric
*
This is one of several interrelated articles on the Colossus of Rhodes (Kebric 2019a,
2019b). Conclusions reached in those other articles, particularly one on the height of
the Colossus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the nature and size
of any pedestal on which the giant statue stood, determined that it was at least 110
feet tall and stood on a three-tiered pedestal some fifty-feet high -- a combined height
of 160 feet. These other ATINER studies also concluded that the Colossus, the largest
statue in the Greek world and votive offering to Helios, God of the Sun and the
island’s patron deity, was located at the apex of the acropolis of Rhodes city among
the island’s other most sacred temples and monuments atop what is today known as
Monte Smith. The latter, approaching about 300 feet in antiquity, would have elevated
the Colossus some 460 feet above the sea below, and also made it an ideal ―light
tower‖ for vessels approaching and leaving Rhodes’ five harbors. This study develops
that idea to its logical conclusion, incorporating the latest information about such
light towers on mountainous Greek islands (such as Rhodes). While there is no
specific information about the Colossus as a lighthouse, there can be no doubt that
Rhodes would have needed a light tower(s) on its heights from an early time. It is also
logical that the Colossus would have been constructed with that purpose in mind from
the start and assumed that function when built. Comparisons with the contemporary
Lighthouse at Pharos, another of the Seven Wonders, and the modern Statue of
Liberty, originally conceived as a lighthouse and close in size to the Colossus, are
also included-- as is the reminder of the human inclination from earliest days to
―light‖ tall structures that they build. The Eiffel tower is another more recent
example. Suggestions as to how the Colossus could have functioned as a lighthouse,
both by day and night, are also offered. Practical applications of expensive civic
projects, especially long-drawn out ones, are also always an unavoidable
consideration to city fathers of any period feeling community pressures: The Colossus
was no different in that respect.
Keywords: Colossus of Rhodes, Helios, Seven Ancient Wonders, Ancient Rhodes,
Chares of Lindos, Ancient ―Lighthouses‖, Hellenistic Technology, Pharos at
Alexandria, Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower.
General Overview
In a previous study on the Colossus of Rhodes (Kebric, 2019b), I concluded
that the giant statue of the sun god, Helios, was situated atop the promontory now
known as Monte Smith, above the modern city of Rhodes at the apex of the old
city acropolis. It was also determined that the Colossus, completed around 280
B.C., was about 110 feet tall and was placed on a three-tiered base probably 50-
*Senior Professor of History (Retired), University of Louisville, USA.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
12
feet tall. When its combined 160-foot height is added to the elevation of Monte
Smith, close to 300-feet, the Colossus stood some 460 feet above the sea, making
the tallest statue in the world also an ideal ―lighthouse.‖
Such a lighthouse would have functioned in the same way smaller light
towers once placed on Monte Smith previously had, only more efficiently—
guiding arriving vessels to one of the five harbors at Rhodes City and signaling to
communicate simple messages to other stations around the island. It was also
appropriate that the Colossus, the embodiment of Helios, god of the sun, should
continue serving into the night as a ―star‖ in the capacity of a lighthouse.
While there is no information about the Colossus as a lighthouse, some hints
may be gleaned about how it may have functioned as one by comparing it with
details about the Pharos lighthouse, its contemporary ―Wonder of the World‖ at
the harbor entrance to Alexandria in Egypt. That structure would become the
standard by which all subsequent lighthouses were judged (―pharos‖ became the
Ancient Greek word for such facilities). An epigram about the Pharos by the poet,
Posidippus (Gow & Page 11; Astin & Bastianini 115), whose poems place him in
third century B.C. Alexandria, is very revealing because he had actually seen it in
operation. His description immediately settles any question about whether or not
the famous lighthouse, built during the reigns of Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II, had a
great blazing flame at its top. Posidippus confirms that it did-- and adds that it
could be seen by sailors all through the night to help guide their ships safely into
the harbor at Alexandria.
Posidippus, from whose work one ―reads the city [of Alexandria] through
his poetry,‖1 also confirms for us (unless he is speaking metaphorically) that
the Pharos lighthouse, whatever its appearance and size at the time, was to be
identified with Zeus the Savior, whose statue, most would agree, originally
graced the top of the Pharos. However, it cannot be entirely ruled out that, as
had become custom, such a manifestation of Zeus at the top of the Pharos
could also have embodied Alexander, his ―son,‖ after whom the new city was
named-- and also Helios, the sun, with which Zeus was identified in Egypt as
Zeus-Ammon. The Pharos‘ flame was much like the sun, venerated as the
patron deity of Rhodes. In fact, a much later sixth century A.D. mosaic
representation of the statue atop the Pharos clearly represents it as Helios.
Since Ptolemy I was also known as ―Soter,‖ or Savior, the allusion to Zeus the
Savior would also have reflected favorably upon him. The one statue could
represent many identities― just as Proteus, the ―Old Man of the Sea,‖ who had
traditionally first lived on the island of Pharos, was polymorphic.
Interestingly, the Pharos did not make the list of Seven Wonders until long
after the Colossus had fallen in an earthquake around 226 B.C-- but Posidippus‘
―eyewitness‖ epigram, confirms several issues that might otherwise distract us
while trying to discover features which might also be associated with the Colossus
as a lighthouse: There was, as previously noted, a blazing fire at the top of the
Pharos Lighthouse-- but Posidippus also says that it continued to burn through the
night, demonstrating there was no lack of ―fuel,‖ as some have argued, to supply
1Acosta-Hughes (2004).
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies XY
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it. He further confirms that ships did, also contrary to the belief of many, continue
to sail at night; and that, unlike at Alexandria, where the low profile of the
breakwater necessitated building the Pharos straight up from sea at the harbor
entrance, other Mediterranean seaports had positioned their ―…look-out posts on a
mountain, as in the islands…where ships take harbor.‖2 By comparing the Pharos‘
blazing flame at its summit to these other port ―look-out posts,‖ Posidippus
confirms for us that such watch-towers, look-out places, or other distinguished
heights ―on a mountain, as in the islands,‖ had similar flames and acted as the
―lighthouses‖ of the day.
These individual details are important for any discussion about the Colossus
because, as a lighthouse, it, too, would have had a fire(s) that burned all night;
guided ships safely into port; and otherwise fulfilled the same maritime role
Posidippus assigned to the look-out posts located high on mountain tops― in this
case, at the mountainous island port of Rhodes, second only in importance to
Alexandria.
Posidippus also wrote about the Colossus. In a more recently-discovered
epigram (AB 68), he says that even though the Colossus was unrivalled in size, the
citizens at Rhodes had pressed Chares, the sculptor from Lindos who had
fashioned it, to make his colossal statue of Helios, ―Twice its size.‖ For a
contemporary writer to have mentioned both the Colossus and the Pharos in his
work is a welcome and remarkable happenstance-- but while Posidippus
unequivocally states that the top of the Pharos blazed with a great flame, he says
nothing about any fire associated with the Colossus. That does not, however,
eliminate the possibility that it, too, had been designed as a giant light tower and
was equipped with one or more beacons of fire. Posidippus was talking about two
different monumental structures in two different epigrams at two different times,
perhaps years apart― and in two different locations some 360 miles apart. He had
no reason to mention a light(s) for the Colossus because it had nothing to do with
what he was saying in his epigram. What he has done for us in respect to the
Pharos, however, is to demonstrate that the ―technology‖ did exist to produce a
practical and sustainable ―beacon‖ of light at the top for its operation.
Consequently, it is a certainty that Chares also knew this because evidence from
Philo of Byzantium (e.g. Belopoeica 51.10), who also lived at Alexandria in the
third century B.C.,3 demonstrates a long-time, close technological connection
2The translation runs:
(I)As a savior of the Greeks, this watchman of Pharos, O lord Proteus,
was set up by Sostratus, son of Dexiphanes, from Cnidos.
For in Egypt there are no look-out posts on a mountain, as in the islands,
but low lies the breakwater where ships take harbor.
Therefore this tower, in a straight and upright line,
appears to cleave the sky from countless furlongs away
during the day, but throughout the night quickly a sailor on the waves
will see a great fire blazing from its summit.
And he may even run to the Bulls Horn, and not miss
Zeus the Savior, O Proteus, whoever sails this way.
(Translation by Dirk Obbink, University of Oxford) 3Marsden (1971, pp. 6-9) has established his date.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
14
between Alexandria and Rhodes. There were also scores of individuals passing
continuously between the two cities who could have provided the same technical
information.
Because Posidippus clearly demonstrates in his epigram4 about the Colossus
that the citizenry of Rhodes had pressed Chares to make it even taller, an apparent
impossibility, they most likely would not have been content to have it rivaled in
any other way— especially by an impressive creation like the Pharos at
Alexandria, Rhodes‘ ―sister-harbor‖ and chief maritime rival. Twelve years of
pressuring him must have taken its toll on Chares, so we can be certain that he did
everything else not related to the Colossus‘ height to please them. That would have
included whatever he knew to light it up as spectacularly as the Pharos. Just as its
contemporary marvel burned brightly at Alexandria, the Colossus, standing high
above the harbors at Rhodes, must always have been intended to perform the same
function there. Consequently, we would argue that the Colossus was, like the
Pharos, conceived from the start as a working ―lighthouse,‖ and that choice would
have immediately impacted where it would have been placed: ―on a mountain, as
in the islands‖― in this case, atop Rhodes‘ acropolis on Monte Smith, where the
giant statue could be seen by anyone and everyone both day and night, on land and
at sea.
People have always liked to light up at night the tall things that they build--
doubly so at ancient Rhodes, one might suspect, for a colossal statue of Helios,
who, after all, was the sun god. The Eiffel Tower, for example, the tallest structure
in the world at the time, was fully illuminated on a scale never before seen for the
1889 Universal Exposition. It was for no other reason than the spectacle it
provided― a declaration of French national pride. A contemporary image (Figure
1) of the Eiffel Tower shows it in its entire splendor― its spotlights focusing
below on other buildings at the Exposition, while a higher beacon flashed round in
red, white, and blue. The lighting technology for the Eiffel Tower, primitive by
our standards, was as advanced as the day allowed. At the time of the Colossus,
the only lighting available was that provided by managing some form of fire.
Nonetheless, the much later Eiffel Tower is a useful example to demonstrate that
no matter what the time, the cutting-edge ―technology‖ of any age will be
employed by those who are motivated to take the leap. We can be assured that
Chares, too, would have stretched the boundaries of what had previously been
possible to approach the ―impossible‖ and make the Colossus a ―wonder‖ in every
way. The crowd, as Posidippus indicated, was really ―into it,‖ and Chares‘ statue
also became a matter of ―national‖ pride. The Rhodians probably took to heart
Pindar‘s earlier observation in his Olympian Odes (7.53), dedicated in gold
letters in the temple of Athena at Lindos, Chares‘ hometown, that the artists of
4Translation of Posidippus‘ epigram (AB 68) on the Colossus:
The Rhodians wanted to make the enormous (?) Sun
Twice its size, but Chares of Lindus set it down that
No craftsman would make a statue even bigger than this one.
If that venerable Myron reached a limit
Of four cubits, Chares was the first with his art
To forge in bronze a figure [the size?] of the earth…
(Translation by Alexander Sens, Georgetown University)
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies XY
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Rhodes were so accomplished that their statues looked like they were actually
walking down the avenues on which they stood.
Figure 1. The Eiffel Tower
Note: A contemporary postcard image of the Eiffel Tower after dark during the
1889 Universal Exposition in Paris. Hundreds of gas lamps lit up the Tower,
while a beacon at the pinnacle sent out, with the aid of Thomas Edison’s creative
genius, beams of red, white, and blue to the excitement of the crowds. The
Exposition’s Tricolorée set the stage for the later French-American bonds
associated with the Statue of Liberty, whose interior structure was also designed
by Gustave Eiffel. Searchlights on tracks illuminated exposition buildings below,
a revolutionary moment in the history of lighting and the birth of the familiar
―Sound and Light‖ spectacles at sites around the world we see today. In its time,
it might be suggested, the Rhodians, too, attempted something similar with the
Colossus— but within the bounds of their more primitive lighting skills and for
more religious and practical purposes.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
16
Posidippus had written in his epigram that the Pharos had ―a great fire
blazing from its summit,‖ giving Alexandria the same capability that the
islands, in particular, had always had to guide ships to their harbors from
―look-out posts‖ atop nearby mountains. Such ―watch towers,‖ going back to at
least Homeric days, could not communicate any distance at night except by
fire. They were also used to relay simple information. No one can forget, for
example, Aeschylus‘ weary watchman in the Agamemnon, posted on the roof
of the palace when he sees the blazing fire shining brightly in the dark night
sky from a distant beacon that signaled the fall of Troy— a primitive system of
signaling at the time, but one which would later be perfected for more precise
communication by the historian Polybius (10.43-47).
By 400 B.C., the summits above each of Rhodes‘ four cities, all of which
had harbors, would have similarly been used for signaling. Upon these same
heights were located temples dedicated to Athena (and also Zeus at Rhodes
City). It would be difficult to argue that it was not also normal practice to use
such elevations, all at the top of each city‘s acropolis, to set fire beacons to
communicate between themselves and to guide ships at sea. Such beacons
would have become more sophisticated as Greek society progressed. At
Rhodes City, they would have been located at the zenith of Monte Smith, its
highest elevation, which we have already offered as the best location for the
Colossus. Everything at that particular location fits nicely together: a large ―fire
tower‖ that had for years guided ships into Rhodes‘ ever-expanding harbors;
the grandest temple on the island— and, now, combined with them at the
summit was built a colossal votive offering to Helios, symbolizing Rhodes‘
independence, prosperity, and security. Once erected, there is no reason not to
believe that the Colossus replaced whatever previous fire tower(s) there was
atop Monte Smith, and assumed, like the Pharos at Alexandria, its primary
function as a lighted beacon to guide sea traffic into Rhodes.
If all the Rhodians had wanted to do was build a colossal tribute to Helios,
they could easily have done that on top of the tallest peak on Rhodes, Mt.
Attavyros, almost 4,000 feet high, sacred to Zeus, and visible on a clear day
from the heights of Crete some 100 miles away. Certainly, the ultimate choice
for the Colossus‘ location would not have been capricious-- but one that would
most effectively encompass all their needs. That would necessarily exclude a
harbor-side site for a light-bearing Colossus-- including the now discarded but
still persistent image of the giant statue bestriding the harbor entrance that still
remains a favorite for non-specialists pondering its location. However, there
were five harbors at Rhodes, and each of the three other major cities also had
one— all war torn from Demetrius‘ siege, and, in the minds of their citizenries,
at least, all deserving of the Colossus being placed on their acropolis. While a
harbor at the island‘s capital seems to us a natural choice for the giant statue,
that idea may be deceptive. Local patriotism and political divisiveness ran high
at Rhodes, and the initial discussion of such a matter may not have been
without ―noise‖ before the final decision was made to erect it at the capital city,
the bustling hub of the island‘s maritime business. There, it would not only
serve as a glorification to Helios, who had protected the island during its siege
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies XY
17
by Demetrius, but also provide a shining beacon from atop Monte Smith for
ships approaching any of its harbors― the single location from which such a
beacon could be seen from across the channel in Caria and for miles around in
every direction.
Compelling additional reasons to eliminate a harbor-level location for the
Colossus are too glaring to ignore-- and two are definitive. Both Strabo
(14.2.5) and Pliny, who actually saw or knew someone, who had, the ruins of
the Colossus, state that they were lying on the ground. There was enough room,
according to Pliny (34.18.41), for visitors to mill about and actually have
contact with the statue‘s huge bronze remains. That necessarily means the
Colossus, at least 110 feet tall (without its pedestal) had been located on an
expanse of land that could still easily accommodate its giant ruined corpse. No
jetty, mole, breakwater, or projection of land, natural or human made, at any of
Rhodes‘ harbors could have accommodated such a massive amount of bronze--
especially, as it appears, for centuries after its fall. The Colossus, itself, would
also have to have been very accommodating by taking care not to fall into the
water when it was toppled by the c. 226 B.C. earthquake.
The other definitive reason for not erecting the Colossus directly on the sea
is that it was supported by an iron (and stone) interior framework. While
bronze, malleable, durable, and attractive in appearance, is especially resilient
to sea water and salt filled air-- iron is not. One has only to look at one‘s car
during the winter to see what kind of damage the salt compound put on streets
to dissolve snow can quickly do to an iron alloy (steel) frame and body.
Traditionally, the Colossus was said to have taken twelve years to complete.
With direct exposure to salt water and moist, salty air and winds, all parts of
the Colossus would have been quickly ―infected.‖ The corrosion and
deterioration of the metal would have started immediately while the statue was
being built. Chares, an experienced sculptor and engineer, would have known
that— and avoided it.
There are other negative reasons to dismiss any of Rhodes‘ five harbors as
candidates for where the Colossus once stood. While its bronze exterior was
well suited as a metal to survive outside for long periods, its skin was very thin,
perhaps penny thin. Just to keep up its luster to reflect, as much as possible, the
sunlight off its gigantic body and face, it would have to have been vigorously
maintained on a daily basis— also, to prevent salt and other mineral deposits
from building up and getting into the ―cracks‖ and openings in the giant figure.
Interior heat buildup had to be vented, and the Colossus did have to ―breathe‖.
That would mean there would always be large maintenances crews and their
lodgings and equipment about the busy harbor(s), interfering with normal
traffic.
As the tallest structure on the harbor, it also would have been (as are the
Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty, in their respective environments) a giant
lightening rod, potentially drawing powerful strikes to nearby buildings and
ships and starting fires. The entire waterfront could be set ablaze. Over the
twelve years of construction, a harbor side site also would have blocked or
impeded both military and commercial ship traffic in what was one of the
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busiest ports in ancient Greece. That by itself would have made the project
impossible there.
This was not a time of peace, and the recent siege by Demetrius was still in
people‘s minds: It could happen again. The Colossus, a celebration to ―victory‖
in the last war, could very well become the reason for subsequent defeat since
its construction would have made the harbor(s) unable to respond quickly and
decisively against any future enemy. Thucydides observation from a century
earlier during the Peloponnesian War may be recalled (8.44.2), when the
citizenry of the nearby city of Kamiros got so unnerved at just the sight of a
Spartan fleet approaching their harbor unannounced, they immediately
panicked and fled into the hills. What would the Rhodians have done had a
valuable colossal statue been there to complicate matters?
Finally, a Colossus at the harbor holding a blazing torch or some other
such ―beacon light,‖ routinely shown in early illustrations, would have been
useless there. Its light would have been obscured almost immediately by the
surrounding physical environment-- as can be seen today when one leaves the
commercial harbor on a ship. It also could not be seen by most ships
approaching the harbor until it was too late to be of any help. The beacon
simply would have been too low to guide ships safety into its harbors--
especially at night. Most of same reasons can just as easily be applied to
eliminate a site for the Colossus close to the harbor behind the nearby walls--
most popularly by the Palace of the Grand Master in the old city of Rhodes.
That, of course, does not mean that other sizable statues described by Pliny,
some colossal in size, could not have stood there and at other prominent places
within the city.
These problems do not preclude a smaller colossal statue of Helios of
some more resilient materials standing at one time near or at the major
commercial or military harbor. In fact, it seems likely. Pliny had spoken of a
number of such statues at Rhodes, but, even so, the closest he comes to a
harbor side colossal figure in his discussion of colossi (34.18.39) is the much
older 45-foot bronze statue of Apollo at Apollonia Pontica on the Black Sea
(Bulgaria). Very recent archaeological work there, however, confirms that the
statue was actually not at the harbor entrance but on an island with its temple
across from the ancient city-- although the island may have once been
connected to the mainland by a narrow breakwater of some sort, something like
the one built in 1927.5 However, even had such a statue(s) of Helios earlier
been standing near but not on a harbor at Rhodes, it would not have fared well
during the siege of Demetrius-- or any potential future attack. More wisely, the
Rhodians probably followed the classic example from the Athenians, who
directed their energies first toward fortifying their harbor(s), while placing their
most colossal figures out of harm‘s way, high on their Acropolis-- where, it
was said, the sun shone so brightly off the helmet and spear of the Athena
Promachos (nowhere near the height of a Colossus atop Monte Smith), it could
be seen for miles out at sea.
5See, ―Balkan Heritage Apollonia Pontica Excavation Project, Bulgaria, 2017,‖ online reference.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies XY
19
At almost 300-feet above the city of Rhodes and the sea, there was no
better place for the Rhodians to have initially set a signal fire than on Monte
Smith, adjacent to the great temple of Athena and Zeus at the summit of their
acropolis― and, subsequently, to replace that early beacon with the Colossus.
The advantages of the heights of Monte Smith continued to be recognized well
into modern times. Once a strategic place has been identified, it is seldom
abandoned. Just over the past 200 years, Monte Smith (better known to locals
as St. Stephens) was used by British Admiral Sydney Smith, whose name the
mount now bears, as an observation post to monitor Napoleon‘s eastern
Mediterranean naval movements; and, in World War II, the Italians established
a fortress there with large gun emplacements. What this confirms is that the
peak of Monte Smith has been fortified from the start, and that, in antiquity, it
would have been from the ramparts of the Rhodian defenses located there that
a fire tower would have been erected— simply because it was at this particular
place where it could best ―see‖ and be seen. Unfortunately, it was for this same
reason that over the millennia, a continual rain of destruction has fallen down
upon the tiny plot of land, obliterating in the process (along with frequent
destructive earthquakes) most signs of anything that was ever there― including
the Colossus.
Still, Rhodes was an island, and even at the top of Monte Smith it can be
very windy, and salt is unavoidably in the air― but at such a higher elevation,
the most pressing problems that a colossal figure would immediately have
faced on the harbor (and in the city) were either eliminated or ameliorated. A
similar situation can be found at San Francisco, where those who live on the
shore of the bay suffer more from the effects of sea water and air than those
who live higher up on Telegraph Hill. Interestingly, the same 275-foot hill
shares another parallel with Monte Smith since it once served as a signal hill--
in its case, as home to a semaphore that signaled the city about ship traffic
entering the harbor in the nineteenth century and warned of potential dangers.
It is only logical that any previously existing light tower on the heights of
Monte Smith would have later been replaced, or reconfigured, in favor of the
much taller Colossus, which assumed that function in an appropriate
architectural and practical fashion. Along with the Pharos, the Colossus was
one of the two tallest structures of the time, rivalling even the older pyramids
of Khufu and Khafre. On an island on the sea whose life blood was shipping,
there is no reason to believe the Colossus would not have been used as a
lighthouse. That being the case, what kind of light would have emanated from
it; how would the receptacle or platform for such a light be placed on the
Colossus-- whether on its ―person‖ or nearby-- and what kind of technological
enhancements were available at the time to increase the strength of its flame?
Clearly, there had been much recent innovation in lighting ―technology‖ that
could also have been applied to the Colossus.
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The Hellenistic Revolution in Technology
At the time the Colossus was built, the Greek Mediterranean world was at
a crossroads of change in most every respect. Sarton‘s pioneering work on
Hellenistic Science and Culture was among the first to prepare us to understand
more fully the impact the ―Alexandrian Renaissance‖ had on the Greek world
in the last three centuries B.C.-- and, also, on what followed during Roman
times. Alexander‘s conquests had unavoidably resulted in a new diversity of
Mediterranean cultures and opened the door to many novel concepts that
became centered in the particularly unique, polymath atmosphere at
Alexandria. New ideas, experimentations, and Ptolemaic funding seemed to
spawn innovations almost out of the ether in technology, engineering, and
weapons. We know of entire cities in the past that were abandoned to the
elements, such as Roman Italica in Spain (near Seville), where the course of
the Guadalquivir River (Roman Baetis) changed and left the major city where
both Trajan and Hadrian had been born stranded and abandoned. Seldom do we
have the opportunity like the one presented by Alexandria to observe an entire
new city rising from the ground up-- especially one that would become the
world‘s first metropolis.
People, material, wealth, and every other ingredient necessary to build a
great urban center quickly collected at Alexandria, and it continued to expand.
If the new citizens had not been fully aware before about the long tradition of
Egyptian achievements, they were now― and that included monumental
architecture (on a scale largely unknown in Greece), and colossal statues
preceding the Colossus of Rhodes that could ―talk,‖ ―sing,‖ and gesture-- some,
like the Colossi of Memnon, through natural anomalies; others by priestly
manipulation.6
Many things taking place in the vibrant new cultural and technological
atmosphere at Alexandria could also, ultimately, have been relevant to the
design and building of the Colossus of Rhodes. There was demonstrated
cooperation and sharing of knowledge between Rhodes and the Ptolemies in
Egypt, who had assumed the role of protecting Rhodes. Ptolemy I, ―Soter,‖
most probably earned the epithet for his help in saving Rhodes from the attacks
of Demetrius Poliorcetes in 305/4 B.C. What was happening at the Ptolemaic
capital was attracting the greatest engineers, technicians, and artists of the day,
and also affecting how Chares might have envisioned his own work on Rhodes,
especially, the building of the Colossus. Philo of Byzantium, who penned the
earliest surviving compilation of the ―Seven Wonders,‖ was, among other
things, a contemporary weapons engineer who had been drawn to Alexandria at
the time. He plainly demonstrated the cooperation between Alexandria and
Rhodes when he stated that he freely shared information and associated with
―many master craftsmen in Rhodes‖ (Belopoeica 51.10). The Pharos was also
being constructed at the entrance to Alexandria‘ harbor-- and the Museum and
Library were rapidly emerging as centers for all intellectual pursuits in the
6La Grandeur (2012) has produced a fascinating essay on such matters.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies XY
21
Hellenistic world. Clearly, much information was being shared between Egypt
and Rhodes.
Already, Chares had as his own mentor the great sculptor, Lysippus, who
had raised colossal statues. Whatever Lysippus had done, Chares built on his
example― not only in the matter of height, but also in other respects that
would have made his Colossus an even more unique creation. We usually think
of height alone as being the reason for the Colossus‘ inclusion among the
―Wonders of the World‖― and, to be sure, it was the tallest statue ever built.
However, just the physical presence of a gigantic statue may not have been
enough to earn the Colossus its legendary status. The Pharos, for example, was
also tall― but did not gain that same status until centuries later.
A much-overlooked passage from Pliny is valuable in establishing that the
school of Lysippus, to which Chares belonged, had become known not only for
colossal statues but also for innovative ways in which to make them move.
What Pliny meant when he related that Lysippus‘ 60-foot statue of Zeus at
Tarentum in Italy could be ―moved by the hand‖ (34.18.40) is unclear--
especially since Pliny had just noted that Lysippus had ensconced his large
statue so firmly in place that the Romans had given up trying to transport it to
Rome for display. Consequently, his statement cannot simply be referring to
moving the statue from where it originally stood, but to its moving in place-- or
moving some individual part(s)-- with apparent ease. There is no question
about this since Pliny continues that Lysippus had added a column next to the
Zeus to reinforce its stability, especially during storms, ensuring that it could
not be dislodged from where it stood. The Romans could not do it, even though
they had wished to take it to Rome.
Unfortunately, Pliny says nothing more about how the statue could be so
easily ―moved‖-- but his tantalizing lack of description has led to speculation
that some sort of device(s) inside the statue (or its base) worked by gears,
counterweights, wheels, or even the kind of capstans used in siege craft that
rendered the axles of the giant machines surprisingly easy to turn. Movement
will always trump the traditional static pose of an artwork, especially a large
one, but whether what Pliny describes was necessary to protect the statue or to
move some part of it for dramatic or even religious reasons to enchant the
crowds does not really matter. Lysippus had done something memorable-- and
remarkable― and Chares would be criticized for not matching his own
master‘s ingenuity. It seems a certainty that his Colossus did not disappoint.
While Lysippus had already demonstrated signs of innovations in what
previously had been largely static sculpture, it was at Alexandria where Chares
could turn to advance what he had learned from his mentor for ideas that went
far beyond the bounds of his traditional craft. Ctesibius (c.270 B.C),7 first of
the great Alexandrian engineers, lived and displayed his mechanical genius at
the same time Chares was building the Colossus-- and if, as Posidippus
indicates, public pressure at Rhodes was driving Chares to exceed the known
7See, Marsden (1971, pp. 6-9), for the date.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
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bounds for sculpture of the day, Ctesibius certainly provided the Rhodian
sculptor much about which to think.
Inventor, mathematician, engineer, weapons master, and more, there were
few individuals who have ever influenced succeeding generations as much as
Ctesibius did. The first of the great three mechanical and engineering geniuses
at Alexandria was Ctesibius, his influence continuing on to Philo, his
―successor,‖ and then Hero, both of whom had no qualms about expressing
their debt and admiration for Ctesibius. Ctesibius was the father of pneumatics,
the use of compressed air to operate or move mechanical devices, and pioneer
in its counterpart, hydraulics; and, while practically nothing remains of his
writings, welcome descriptions of his revolutionary inventions were later
preserved by Vitruvius in his De architectura (Books 9-10), which he
dedicated to the Emperor Augustus. They include an early counter-weighted,
adjustable mirror (presumably of polished bronze) for Ctesibius‘ father‘s
barbershop at Alexandria, which could be lowered and raised as needed; the
first water (and, also, pneumatic) organ and accurate water clocks; an
innovative and highly-praised bronze-spring war catapult; a water screw; a
water pump; and a variety of other fascinating objects.
Highlighting these latter imaginative creations were figures that could
move, drink, and sing; mechanical blackbirds that could also sing; and other
such amusements that were pleasing to the eye and ear that were, at the time,
regarded more as ―toys‖ for his Ptolemaic masters (and mistresses) than for any
more serious application. This was partly because Ctesibius knew from where
his support came, making sure to please Ptolemy‘s whims and desire to
impress his guests; and partly because the technology (and materials) of the
day restricted what was possible to do on a grander scale. It would not be the
last time revolutionary concepts had to remain on the drawing board― or in
the form of small models.
All of Ctesibius‘ inventions and ideas were early enough to influence
Chares while he was building the Colossus. For his purposes, Ctesibius‘
advances were available to use in Chares‘ employment of reflective mirrors;
precision use of bronze; accurate time keeping; devices that were operated
through air pressure to open and close or raise and lower objects (already in use
at Alexandria); music produced by water or compressed air organs; and statues
that moved and vocalized, seemingly by their own will (something, perhaps,
along the same lines of what Lysippus‘ had employed earlier in his colossus of
Zeus).
It was inevitable that in such an innovative technological atmosphere--
something like the early days of airplanes and cars in the twentieth century when
new ideas were changing the products so rapidly it was difficult to keep up― the
newest advances in technology and mechanics would also have found their way
into the design and construction of the Colossus. They certainly did in respect to
weapons development, where, in their own armories, the Rhodians shared the
latest innovations with their counterparts at Alexandria.
Chares would not have hesitated to incorporate anything that enhanced his
giant creation on Rhodes, as well as his own reputation, because such avant-
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies XY
23
garde additions would have made the Colossus a wonder in other respects
beyond its amazing height. If it moved, ―talked,‖ acted as a horologe (its huge
shadow serving as a giant gnomon dividing up the day), or incorporated mirrors
to reflect more intensely the light from any fire beacon associated with the
Colossus, so much the better. It would also be difficult to believe that Ctesibius‘
experimentation with mirrors stopped at his father‘s barber shop door. Why
would anyone have bothered to make up such a story if Ctesibius had not been
involved in such research? Hero‘s continued interest in the theory and
construction of plane and curved mirrors in his Catoptrica would indicate that it
had not (the same can also be said about the temple doors that opened and closed
through pneumatics, an innovation usually ascribed to Hero). Music provided by
small organs may also have been played at appropriate times (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. A Restored Pneumatic Organ Discovered Among the Ruins of the
Roman City of Aquincum, Today in Greater Budapest. Note: It is our finest example of what Ctesibius‘ organ must have looked like in the third
century B.C. A modern recreation of the original is actually playable.
The Colossus: A Product of its Time
This discussion began with the proposal that one of the reasons the Colossus
of Rhodes would have been erected atop Monte Smith, the peak of the Rhodes
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
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City‘s acropolis, was that it was the only location where the giant statue could
have been placed to serve in any effective capacity as a ―lighthouse.‖ Monte Smith
was the highest local site from which to guide safely what would have been a
constant flow of ocean traffic to-- or by, if ships were going elsewhere-- the
harbors at Rhodes.
Posidippus‘ description of the Pharos at Alexandria leaves no doubt about its
blazing flame-- but, as already noted, neither he, nor anyone else, says anything
about a similar flame for the Colossus that would have taken over duties formerly
performed by a light tower atop Monte Smith. There can be no doubt that there
previously was a light beacon at the apex of the Rhodian acropolis, probably set on
one of the city wall towers, because Posidippus indicates placing such towers on
mountain tops on Greek islands was common practice. Since we are proposing
that the Colossus of Rhodes was also located at the top of Monte Smith, it only
makes sense that the much taller Colossus, when built, would have replaced any
previous light tower as the primary pharos for Rhodes. There would be no need for
two ―lighthouses‖ at the same place.
It may be safe to say that the Colossus‘ service in the capacity of a lighthouse
would have attracted even more attention to it and was an additional reason why it
was included among the original ―Seven Wonders‖ of the World― even
overshadowing the Pharos at Alexandria, which was not in the original lists of
Wonders, seemingly a glaring oversight to us. The reason may be due in part to
what the Pharos looked like at the time the Colossus was finished. It was probably
not as spectacular as it would be in later centuries― perhaps only a larger version
of a light tower that had previously been at Pharos. By way of comparison, one
typically thinks of the original Temple at Jerusalem in terms of what the
impressive reconstructions of the later Second Temple must have looked like
when destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. At the time of Solomon, however, the
Hebrews were not architecturally advanced enough to have built anything
comparable to the later images. Philo of Byzantium, who resided at Alexandria
while both the Colossus and the Pharos stood, was not moved enough by what he
saw to include the latter with the Colossus in his De septem orbis spectaculis, the
earliest list of ―Wonders‖ we possess. Perhaps, it was because he saw it every day,
and while it certainly must have been an eye-catching structure for no other reason
than it was at the entrance to Alexandria‘s harbor, Philo may have viewed it more
as a functional building that was much too common and workman-like to be
included. Unattractive smoke and soot from its large fire must also have bellowed
over the new city to the dismay of residents when the winds were right. Its
impressive later exterior also may not have been there at the time.
Philo liked the grand appearance of the older walls at Babylon better, which
he chose to include over the Pharos in his list― perhaps because Alexander‘s
presence and subsequent death in Babylon added to the contemporary mystery of
the place. Unlike Alexander‘s connection in some way to all the other ―Wonders‖
during his lifetime, the king had nothing to do with the Pharos-- other than
ordering it built before his death.
There is also the lingering ―tradition‖ that because the flame from the
Alexandrian Pharos needed to be seen by ships from much further distances, it was
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies XY
25
enhanced in some way by a mirror(s) of polished bronze― the idea being that the
flame could be reflected off such a ―mirror‖ and even direct the light in a more
specific direction(s). There is no contemporary reference to confirm the use of
such mirrors-- not even Posidippus-- and what references we do have about
mirrors at the Pharos are from a much later date: Pliny, for example, says
(36.18.83) that in his time, the uninterrupted fire from the Pharos‘ beacon could be
seen from so great a distance that it could be mistaken for a star. That certainly
sounds like an ―enhanced‖ version of a simple fire. As is often the case, the ancient
sources are silent about the things we most want to know.
Nonetheless, the fact that the Pharos Lighthouse and Ctesibius were in
Alexandria at the same time would certainly make it improbable that Ptolemy
would not have asked his in-house genius to ―play around‖ with how the light
from the Pharos could be enhanced. Ctesibius and the other ―geniuses‖ assembled
at Alexandria certainly would not have been idle in advancing the technology of
reflected light and how best to employ it. The Ptolemies would have seen to that
since their continued power largely rested on sea traffic. Ctesibius‘ talents could
realistically have been employed to enhance the flame from the Pharos just by use
of a larger version of the mirror(s) of the reputed ―barber shop‖ variety he was
credited with inventing. That it was adjustable, as was the one in the barbershop
story, and moved up and down through a system of counter-weights to vary the
Pharos‘ light, is also more than likely.
If some system of mirrors actually were employed at the Pharos, it would only
have been an extension of the use of mirrors already going back centuries in
Ancient Egypt. Workmen in the tombs of Egypt had long before perfected the art
of ―throwing light‖ from one place to another by using mirrors to illuminate the
inside of tombs, providing light for those excavating them, and, subsequently, for
those painting the tombs‘ interiors. Torches could never have been used because of
the smoke they produced-- and they used up all the oxygen in the tomb. This
system of mirrors is still in use today when tourists are shown into the otherwise
dark tombs of ancient Egyptians where electricity has not yet reached. A direct
beam of intense sunlight from an opening purposely cut in the roof of a darkened
ancient temple or tomb can also be reflected off something as simple as one‘s
light-colored clothing― especially white shirts or blouses.
Ctesibius would have known about this routine method of providing light
from the sun by mirror relays, as would other engineers at Alexandria, and he
could very well have advanced the basic concept and employed it in a lighthouse.
Herodotus relates that a shield signal was flashed for seemingly traitorous intent
by pro-Persian Greeks from the hills above Marathon directly following the battle
in 490 B.C. --from what would necessarily have to have been an especially shined
bronze surface. The episode has attracted much mixed discussion, but our only
interest here is that Herodotus knew about such shield signals― which means that
they did exist, and they did work.
We have an even earlier Greek example of how mirrors could have been
employed in difficult engineering projects because they provide the best
explanation for how the tunnel of Eupalinus on the island of Samos was excavated
during the reign of Polycrates in the sixth century B.C. Even Herodotus, who did
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not like tyrants, included the 3,300-foot tunnel cut through the middle of a 900-
foot high hill as one of Polycrates‘ greatest achievements. What was especially
remarkable is that workmen started simultaneously at the base on either side of the
hill― and met in its middle. A short distance in from the south entrance of this
tunnel are the remains of a vertical light shaft Eupalinus had cut to project a
blinding ray of sunlight into his otherwise dark excavations below. It was
obviously there for an important reason, and it is positioned immediately before
the actual ―doorway‖ to the tunnel proper. The most reasonable explanation is that
a blinding beam of light-- in otherwise complete darkness-- hit a large mirror on a
fixed base with a fixed angle that was positioned directly below it, and that mirror
subsequently reflected the same light to a second in a relay of mirrors that were
placed further into the tunnel as the work progressed. Theoretically, at least, all the
workmen had to do was maintain the original direction by following the point of
light from the mirrors. The original light source probably could not have sustained
such a point of light over a long distance (in this case half the distance through the
hill), so one might surmise that, as in the case of the Ancient Egyptian tomb
workers, a system of relay mirrors was set up to keep the light strongly focused in
the correct direction(s). The basic premise, at least, was successfully tested in the
tunnel in the 1970s.
Because Eupalinus‘ tunnel was started on both sides of the hill at the same
time, the procedure for excavating the second tunnel (now inaccessible) would
have likewise been followed-- and, remarkably, with the additional use of a water
level (the main reason for the tunnel was to transport water to the city) to keep the
tunnels at the same height as the workmen progressed, they successfully met in the
middle of the hill. Until recently, that would have been difficult for modern
technology to match. Pythagoras was on the island at about the same time, but the
idea that he had provided the engineer(s) with a version of the ―Pythagorean
theorem‖ to help guide the course of the tunnels has been dispelled by ground
surveys around the hill, whose terrain is much too uneven for any of kind of such
scheme to work. There are no other physical signs in the roof of the tunnel or
elsewhere to suggest the employment of known techniques for building similar
underground works, such as drainage tunnels in Egypt. On Samos today, one can
still see bronze mirrors from the period displayed in the main museum.
Ctesibius, already familiar with the reflective qualities of mirrors, was
available to put his own genius to work over two centuries later at the Pharos of
Alexandria. For someone as shrewd as Ptolemy not to have employed him in
improving the quality of light projected from the new lighthouse would defy logic.
It was, after all, the single most important beacon directing the many ships coming
to Alexandria with everything needed to make his new capital the greatest city in
the world.
The Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria was made of stone, and at its top was a
great flame that has all appearances of being enhanced by a large bronze mirror(s).
Conceiving of a huge, sun-reflective, polished bronze statue of Helios at Rhodes
that also acted in some manner as a lighthouse should therefore not surprise us.
People have always noticed whatever there is in their environment that reflects
their countenances. The most primitive people could see their reflection in pools of
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water. Bronze mirrors go back to the time when someone also realized they could
see their features on a bronze surface if it were polished up enough. Greek pottery
is ubiquitous with representations of prosperous women at their toilet holding
mirrors. Mirror factories turned out decorative mirrors routinely for local and trade
consumption. A city as large as Rhodes probably had several. Alexandria,
likewise— and hundreds more were all over the Mediterranean. It was already a
long-established and profitable industry.
Colossal bronze statues, some already more than half the size of the Colossus,
had been ―in production‖ for more than two centuries before Chares built his giant
at Rhodes-- so an industry, probably mostly slave-based, to maintain, clean, and
polish such statues, had already developed. Polishing something the size of the
Colossus of Rhodes was probably like painting a bridge today: the job starts over
again as soon as the last brush of paint is applied. And the Colossus must have
been highly polished (like the outer skin of the Egyptian pyramids) to enhance its
reflective character. The resultant effect of such labor, shining in the intense
Rhodian sunlight, must have been awe-inspiring-- moving any individual at
ancient Rhodes to feel pride about it. Also, for anyone thinking about advancing
on the island again with bellicose intentions in the unsettled period following the
death of Alexander, the gleam from the sun off the statue― certainly even more
impressive than the storied reflection off the helmet and spear of the Athena
Promachos at Athens, must have been an intimidating reminder that the island was
under Helios‘ protection.
Today, one can purchase polished sheets of bronze for their homes or
businesses― and they, like the bronze skin of the Colossus, require attention to
keep their sheen. One need only look at bronze jewelry for purchase on-line to see
the bright luster that can be produced. Keeping a 110-foot bronze statue gleaming
seems daunting― even an impossibility-- considering the intensive labor required.
But so, too, does the building of the Great Pyramid, the earliest of the ―Seven
Wonders,‖ over two millennia earlier― and it also had a polished exterior to
reflect the glaring Egyptian sun. When massive work forces are available to
complete massive projects, they get finished, in amazing times. This is especially
true when there is a religious motivation, as there was for the Colossus, as well as
a tremendous amount of community pride. At the minimum, the exterior of
surviving bronze statues today, a number even rescued from the sea, reflect
pleasingly off museum lights; at maximum, statues aggressively polished to a
shine in antiquity by an expert labor force must have looked absolutely brilliant in
the light.
The Colossus was a votive offering to the sun, a religious object, not just
another statue-- and Helios did not want to be disappointed by his image. Keeping
it shining would mean there would have to have been a large force of labor
constantly on call. Such an on-going procedure would also have to have been
carried out without invasively interfering with the daily appearance of the
Colossus and its aesthetic appeal to those at home and from abroad who looked at
it as a marvel and symbol of Rhodian pride and power.
The technological advancements of the third century B.C., both in war and
peace, as well as the innovations for light towers, or ―lighthouses,‖ in particular,
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
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incorporated into the construction of the greatest one at the Pharos in Alexandria,
would also have accordingly advanced the technology of such towers everywhere
else― especially for the busy harbors at Rhodes, where the Colossus was being
built. It can therefore be proposed with some confidence that the functions
previously performed by a separate lighted watch tower(s) atop Monte Smith
would now have been transferred in some more effective capacity to the Colossus,
and that the latter, because of its additional height, acted not only as a super light
tower but also as an illuminated day and night spectacle in the name of Helios, the
sun god and patron of the island.
Any fire associated with the Colossus as a light tower, however, would not
need to have blazed as brilliantly as that of the Pharos because Rhodes was located
directly across the channel from Caria (only nine miles across from the modern
capital city) and there were other islands nearby, so its light could easily be seen
by approaching ships. There were also lights from the heights of the Rhodian
towns of Kamiros and Ialysos on the same side of the island by which ships could
guide themselves at night. A simple but effective fire, then, may have been all that
was needed, and it still would have pierced the darkness from miles away.
Nonetheless, reflecting that same light using a polished bronze mirror(s) would
have tremendously enhanced the light and its all-around effect, something that
would have been desirable if for no other reason than spectacle. That a torch or
bowl-like container would have been ―built into‖ or attached to the colossal statue
or a raised arm, as sometimes shown in illustrations, is probably unrealistic since
the continual heat generated by such a blazing fire so close to the bronze skin of
the Colossus would have melted its metal― or at least progressively damaged it.
Soot from the smoke would also be detrimental to the statue.
Before the Colossus was even built, the system of handling fire at watch
towers had undoubtedly improved to the point that, instead of climbing to the top
of the tower to ignite a fire, which could be dangerous in itself, the Greeks had
advanced the technology to the point that the fire could be kindled at ground level
and then raised to the top of a tower, circular or squared, masonry and/or metal, by
a simple system of internal pulleys or counterweights. In such manner, fire-
resistant ―bowls,‖ or platforms of fire, wood or oil fueled, could be raised as
simply as Pliny indicates Lysippus had made his statue of Zeus at Tarentum
―move by the hand.‖ Such a system could just as easily have been transferred to
the Colossus and immediately have made it the rival of the Pharos at Alexandria. It
was, after all, already perched on an almost 300-foot cliff and with its pedestal was
another 160 feet high. The top of Colossus‘ 50-foot stone pedestal could, by itself,
have acted as the station for the fire(s) in cauldron(s)-- or a large tripod(s), placed
at the corners directly below the statue. Such corner decorations were not unusual
on large platforms— in this case they would have been containers for fire. That
would have saved the Colossus‘s bronze skin from damage. Perhaps even better, a
separate pillar, or pillars, of fire could have been stationed, much like Lysippus
had constructed a separate column a short distance from his colossal Zeus at
Tarentum to help stabilize it, near the Colossus, so that there was no chance of
affecting it negatively. The Colossus certainly would also have needed such an
external support(s), possibly even built into its design, to provide an integral and
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29
aesthetic appearance. Such a support could have been made of something other
than bronze that could hold a long-burning fire without damage to the apparatus
that held it.
Whatever the light source designed for the Colossus, it, too, could have been
intensified by the employment of bronze sheet mirrors, which most likely once
enhanced the flame of the Pharos. Chares, a master of his craft, would have
worked out a way. His fellow citizens, especially the ones clamoring for him to do
more, would have been pleased.
Any idea that the Colossus held some type of lighted torch in his raised hand
or had a ―bowl‖ of fire in front of or above his face, however, would appear to be
pure fantasy. The technology of the day simply did not exist to supply a practical
torch or fire on the Colossus at such a height-- and, even if it could be done, the
heat from it would melt the statue‘s thin bronze skin. Managing the natural heat
and the daily expansion and contraction it caused (especially within the Colossus),
was an engineering feat by itself. There must have been many ―air vents‖ in the
Colossus‘ outer skin to avoid an extreme buildup of heat and to allow workers the
conditions to work within its interior. (Such heat and expansion and contraction
problems also affected the Statue of Liberty― as did the difficulty in sustaining
her raised torch arm, which can sway as much as six inches in a strong wind.)
None of this, however, means that there was not a beacon of fire associated
with the Colossus, and that the giant figure was not designed from the start to act
as a ―lighthouse.‖ As already seen, illuminating tall structures has always
fascinated beholders. The Eiffel Tower, while not a lighthouse, was the tallest
building in the world, and it would be unrealistic to believe that it could ever have
passed without some plans to light it up. The Statue of Liberty, the tallest concrete
and metal structure ever built to its day, was conceived (and used) from the start as
a lighthouse (although not a very effective one, it appears) to help guide ships into
New York Harbor. President Grant may never have okayed the plan to place it
where it is, if he had not thought it was going to serve in that capacity. Fortunately,
Liberty remains fully illuminated today for other reasons― but no one could ever
imagine it sitting in darkness every night. Similarly, would anyone suggest that the
Colossus, along with the Pharos the tallest structure built since the pyramids over
2,200 years earlier, would not also have been ―illuminated‖ at night-- as far as the
technology of the day allowed. Rhodes was both the gateway to the Aegean from
one direction and the gateway to Alexandria, the greatest city in the world, in the
other. Perhaps, it was not just its size that won the Colossus of Rhodes its place on
the list of the wonders of the world.
Concluding Observations
A flame tower could easily have been conceived and erected to stand near
or be attached to the Colossus. A double-iron-framed structure of basic design,
hardly visible from a distance, with pulleys that could raise and lower fire
platforms or pods in tandem, one replacing the other as the fuel expired to
produce continuous light, would not have disturbed the statue‘s thin bronze
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
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skin. Rhodes is full of pine trees to use as fuel (and also probably exported to
Alexandria, where wood was scarce), but the natural commodity could be used
quickly if fires were maintained throughout the day and night. The need for
sustainable fuel was probably what early on sparked the idea that a lower
intensity fire could be used if highly polished bronze mirrors were arranged to
reflect additional light. Projecting light with mirrors was already an established
fact. If the same simple procedure could also be used at night with fires
providing the light instead of the sun, there may also have been mirrors situated
below to reflect light off the highly buffed bronze body of the Colossus and
illuminate it. Like lighting the Eiffel Tower in its time, someone as clever as
Chares and the collection of other geniuses, who, like Ctesibius, were working
with light refraction at Alexandria, certainly could have come up with some
equivalent lighting system. There is, of course, no way of demonstrating this
on the same scale, but, theoretically, the material and know how was available
to enhance any light source emanating from the Colossus and also illuminate
the surrounding area below it. Lights always burned continuously at religious
shrines in ancient Greece― and the Colossus was, after all, a gigantic votive
offering.
The ideas presented here are just that― but it is probable that some of
them could have had a practical application for the Colossus. There would be
no reason not to provide an illumination system for the Colossus if technically
possible, and the technology to do so was advanced enough to make it so.
Building the Colossus as a ―futuristic‖ light tower would also undoubtedly
have been a ―selling‖ point to any reticent city fathers who ultimately valued
profit over safety concerns. They were on an island, and they could not exist or
continue to grow without expanding commerce. Most people have no idea that
the Statue of Liberty was ―pitched‖ by supporters as a lighthouse in order to
give it the needed commercial attraction for financial support.
Finally, the copious supply of daily sunshine hitting the giant body of the
Colossus left below on the ground a distinct shadow that could have acted as a
community sun dial. It was common practice to use the shadows of huge
physical objects, even mountains, as a way of keeping time. Augustus would
later use a 100-foot obelisk he had brought from Egypt and placed near the Ara
Pacis on the Via Flaminia to indicate the time of day. The Solarium Augusti
functioned as a solar marker, with a gnomon whose shadow marked the time of
day on the calibrated pavement below. It was the first solar monument at
Rome, and on Augustus‘ birthday, September 23, its shadow fell directly on
the center of the Ara Pacis. Interestingly, Eratosthenes, the man who produced
the first realistic measurement of the earth‘s circumstance, was heavily
involved at Alexandria with gnomons measuring the sun‘s shadow during the
same period Ctesibius was active there-- and while the Colossus was standing.
Blazing light tower fires, bronze mirrors, precision time calculation, and
statues with moving parts that ―spoke,‖ sang, and played music― they, as well
as other innovations just as fantastic to onlookers, were all part of the cultural
fabric of the day. The ability to incorporate any or all of them in the Colossus
of Rhodes while it was being built was unquestionably there. And the only
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location on Rhodes where most, if not all, of these things, along with the
Colossus‘ incredible size, could be most effectively accommodated was high
above the city on its acropolis at the apex of Monte Smith.
References
Acosta-Hughes B (2004) ‗Alexandrian Posidippus: On Rereading the GP Epigrams in
Light of P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309‘ in Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an
Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309). Hellenic Studies
Series 2. Washington D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies. Online version.
La Grandeur K (2012) ‗Robots, Moving Statues, and Automata in Ancient Tales and
History‘ in Carol Colatrella (ed) Critical Insights: Technology and Humanity, Amenia,
NY, USA: Salem Press.
Kebric R.B (2019a) ‗The Colossus of Rhodes: Its Height and Pedestal‘ Athens Journal
of Humanities and Arts (forthcoming)
Kebric R.B (2019b) ‗The Colossus of Rhodes: Some Observations about Its Location‘
Athens Journal of History (forthcoming)
Marsden E.W (1971) Greek and Roman Artillery Technical Treatises, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Kebric: Lighting the Colossus of Rhodes: A Beacon ….
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Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
33
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey and its
Architectural Representation as a Memory Space
By Nazlı Taraz
& Ebru Yılmaz
†
In 1937, a national architectural competition was held for the construction of the third
assembly building of Turkey with a brief invitation text by saying ―we need an assembly
building which symbolizes the continuity of the monumental Republic of Turkey and which
overlaps the contemporary architectural trends of our era in the 20th century‖
(www.kultur.gov.tr). With the praises and emphasis on the monumentality and stability of
the Republic, the competition text plainly declares the national presence of the country in
the 20th century stage and expecting architectural manifestation of modernity and
durability of the Turkish nation in its fundamental administrative building. In this way, the
ideological objectives and the nationalist goals embodied in an architectural space
representing the independent and monumental existence of Turkey in its assembly building
as the memory space of the Republic. From this perspective, this paper aims to handle the
Grand National Assembly of Turkey as the official and architectural representation of
Turkish national identity by focusing on its construction process beginning from the
competition phase, its completion in 1961 and the symbolic details representing the long-
lived existence of the nation from the history onwards. In order to discuss the GNAT as the
memory space of the Republic, discourse analysis will be used by intertwining the
collective memory and national architecture discourses in the Early Republican Turkey. In
this context, architectural written media such as periodicals, newspapers and articles on
national architecture discourse in the Early Republican Period will be used in addition to
the archival research on the last assembly of Turkey. In this way, the last and
contemporary assembly building of Turkey will be studied as a physical representation of
Turkish national identity construction process and its concretization within the national
architectural understanding of the mid-20th century.
Keywords: Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Assembly buildings of Turkey, Memory
Space, National Identity, Early Republican Period
Introduction
From the history onwards, the desire for the territorial dominance and national
sovereignty resulted in destructive actions of states by ruining of city centers
housing religious, historical or national symbols. In the recent memory of the
world, the two world wars and contemporary regional attacks have unfortunately
become traumatic phenomena addressed to the destruction and demolition of
monuments as the long-lived storages of memory and the historical knowledge of
a nation. With a brief glimpse on the recent past, the historical sites of Palmyra,
Aleppo and Raqqa are amongst the most destroyed lands in the first quarter of the
21st century with attacks to the religious and public cores of the cities. Previously,
Research Assistant, İzmir Institute of Technology, Turkey .
†Associate Professor, Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Taraz & Yılmaz: The Grand National Assembly of Turkey and its…
34
the World War II resulted in a comprehensive destruction in European cities such
as Berlin, Florence, Dresden and Aachen with regional attacks to the historical
monuments date back to the ancient times of their national history.
At the beneath of these subversive activities, the historical sites and the urban
monuments have intentionally chosen as physical symbols carrying the traces and
memories of the long-lived existence of a society, city or a nation in a larger scale.
In this way, the more historical structures –buildings, monuments, squares or
statues- are destroyed, the more damage is caused in the memories of a land. By
physically destroying the memory spaces of a nation, it is aimed to destroy the
collective memories and historical milestones specific to a place which transforms
a land into a homeland. Thus, alongside all the destructive and tragic consequences,
the ongoing agenda raises awareness to reconsider our cultural values and national
symbols in our country which are accepted as living-witnesses of the centuries old
civilizations from the history onwards.
Unfortunately, in 2016, Turkey has also faced with a threatening regime
attack which resulted in destructive activities in different regions of the country,
especially in Ankara and Istanbul. Amongst all the destructions, Turkey was
heavily wounded from its national core with more than one bombings to the Grand
National Assembly. In this way, it is aimed to endanger Turkish national existence
with destroying its one of the most important symbols in the urban context which
was constructed as the national representation of the Turkish Republic in the first
half of the 20th century. On that occasion, these tragic events resulted in re-
thinking on nation and national memory concepts with a special emphasis on the
Grand National Assembly as the living proof and living witness of the Republican
memories of Turkish nation.
Looking back to the 1937, when a national architectural competition was held
for the construction of the third assembly building of Turkey, the brief invitation
text declared ―we need an assembly building which symbolizes the continuity of
the monumental Republic of Turkey and which overlaps the contemporary
architectural trends of our era in the 20th century.‖ With the praises and emphasis
on the monumentality and stability of the Republic, the competition text plainly
reflects the national presence of the country in the 20th century stage and expecting
architectural manifestation of modernity and durability of the Turkish nation in its
fundamental administrative building.
In this way, it is aimed to embody ideological objectives and the nationalist
goals in an architectural space representing the independent and monumental
existence of Turkey in its assembly building of the country. From this point of
view, this paper aims to investigate the Grand National Assembly of Turkey
(GNAT) as one of the memory spaces of the Turkish national identity which
carries the memories of the Republic and its representation in the urban context
from its architectural competition phase to the completion in 1961 by staying in
use until today.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
35
Concretization of Memorialize: Memory Spaces
In order to provide a better understanding for memory space discussion on the
last assembly building of Turkey, examining memory discourse from different
perspectives is found precious to understand how memory and its collective
formations can lead to the construction of a national identity specific to a society.
Thus, this paper begins with discussing the spatial representations of collective
memory which have risen especially after the term ―memory spaces‖ introduced
by the French philosopher Pierre Nora in the beginning of the 20th century. Up to
that time, Maurice Halbwachs and David Lowenthal became key-figures in
collective memory discourse by making certain demarcations and classifications
on memory and its recollection channels individually and collectively.
To start with the French philosopher Maurice Halbwachs‘ On Collective
Memory, the author handles collective memory as a continually changing concept
depending on individuals and reads ―collective memory is not a given but rather a
socially constructed notion‖ (Halbwachs, 1992). In this respect, Halbwachs
proposes three ways for memory recollection. Firstly, memories are transferred
within families and close friends while we are growing up in a society. In this way,
secondly, society emerges as a powerful setting in feeding and organizing our
memories in minds within the physical environments that events occurred. Lastly,
memories recollected instinctively by individual him/herself (Halbwachs, 1992).
Accordingly, these three different recollection ways are re-shaped and re-
organized in accordance with societies and physical environments as spaces of
memories.
In a parallel vein, in Past is a Foreign Country, historian David Lowenthal
begins his argument by asking ―how do we come to know about the past?‖ and
classifies the sources of past knowledge as memory, history and relics (Lowenthal,
2005). Accordingly, ―memory is inescapable and prima-facie indubitable; history
is contingent and empirically testable‖ for Lowenthal (Lowenthal, 2005).
Although the author makes a demarcation between memory and history, he also
emphasizes that the boundary between these two sources blurs continually by
reading ―uncertain where memory ends and history begins, we often attribute to
one what comes from the other, jumbling early memories together with stories
later heard and read, much as oral narrative conflates recent recollections with
tales immemorially told‖ (Lowenthal, 2005). As the third source of past
knowledge, relics are handled as concrete mnemonic symbols of the past in natural
forms or artefacts (Lowenthal, 2005). In this way, they come to the forefront as the
physical representations and living-witnesses of the history and collective
memories of societies. Thus, all kind of architectural remains, buildings or
artefacts in the urban context become invaluable storages for memory which are
successfully endured to the destructive effects of passing time.
In a parallel vein, in Memory and Architecture, art historian Eleni Bastea
asserts that architecture is an important medium which concretizes humanitarian
values within spaces and stages to live (Bastea, 2004). By discussing the
spatialization of shared values and collective memory of a society, Bastea uses the
term ―memory‘s voice‖. Accordingly, memory becomes an active voice in shaping
Vol. 5, No. 1 Taraz & Yılmaz: The Grand National Assembly of Turkey and its…
36
our current lives by carrying the traces of the past. On the grounds of these
cumulating traces of our histories, collective memory of a society constitutes a
continuous ground for identification, remembrance, recollection and
memorialization (Bastea, 2004). Thus, architecture emerges as a physical shelter
for these activities in the urban context by physically concretizing memories into
living spaces and experiences through spaces, representations and symbols.
Handling architecture as physical artefacts for keeping memories of a society
is firstly introduced with the term memory spaces in 1984 by the French
philosopher Pierre Nora. Accordingly, Hafıza Mekanları (originally published in
French, Les Lieux de Memoire, 1984) Nora handles certain architectural
components as memory storages of a nation which are concretized physically in
the urban context by representing specific meanings or shared values in societies.
From this point of view, Nora mentions archives, museums, mausoleums and
national celebration spaces and buildings as memory spaces which are intentionally
constructed artefacts for declaring and propagating revolutionary circumstances in
cities (Nora, 2006).
Focusing on the memory and its collective formations, Nora emphasizes that
collective memory is a convertible concept that leads to the construction of
national identity in a society (Nora, 2006). In this respect, memory is handled as a
―framework‖ for nations which can evaluate in accordance with its use in certain
strategies such as national connotations, constructions or commemorations and
celebrations for different purposes (Nora, 2006).
Accordingly, nation and its national identity become observable and
representable notions are concretized in architecture through spatial organizations
and their functional uses in certain intentions. In this way, memory spaces act as
―laboratories‖ where the memorization is re-produced, re-formed and re-presented
in specific places and in specific procedures (Nora, 2006). Thus, memory spaces
are intentional constructions in the urban context to escape from the traces of a
former society by declaring and propagating new characteristics of a new nation.
By calling these construction activities as ―reification of memory‖, Nora
emphasizes that architecture emerges as an active actor in the spatialization of
collective memory and its national formations in societies (Nora, 2006).
Memory Spaces of Turkish National Identity: National Architecture
Discourse in Turkey
To piece together the different perspectives of Halbwachs, Lowenthal and
Bastea, Nora‘s memory space discussion emerges as a significant unifier by
evaluating the symbolic role of architecture in memorialization through physical
spaces and their collective representations for nations. Thus, in this paper, the
representational role of architecture in national connotations is specifically
discussed upon the national architecture discourse of Turkey in the first half of the
20th century. From this perspective, the First and Second National Movements of
Turkey are investigated and the Grand National Assembly is handled as one of the
most important memory spaces of the Republic.
Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
37
The transformation process of the Anatolia from being the lands of Ottoman
monarchy to the Turkish Republic brought about radical changes in society from
the beginning of the 20th century. Within this framework, urban transformations
were held by constructing new public buildings and institutions in order to declare
and propagate new democratic Turkey to the world stage. Moreover, Ankara
became the showcase of the Republic as the capital and leading modernization
steps were initially paced through the new architectural context of the city. In line
with this purpose, each step towards democracy physically embodied in
architectural spaces in the capital by carrying special symbolic meanings which
focused around the new republican national identity of the country.
In The Making of Modern Turkey, historian Feroz Ahmad elaborates the
establishment of Republic and the construction of Turkish identity via the political
and historical context of Turkey and emphasizes that Turkey is not a re-built
version of the Ottoman Empire but a completely constructed new country of the
Kemalists (Ahmad, 1993). In order to propagate the construction of the new
identity, Young Turks were active in every field of the political and cultural
context by advocating the idea that the former monarchy of the Ottoman Empire
had to be abolished for the establishment of a ―secular republic‖ (Ahmad, 1993).
Similarly, Ayşe Kadıoğlu mentions Young Turks as the leading group for the new
Turkishness ideal with the leadership of Ziya Gökalp by proposing the national
identity and cultural structure of the Turkish nation had to be directly arisen from
the ―Turkish folk culture.‖
On the one hand, Gökalp outlines ―civilization‖ as a progress which can be
learned from the West, on the other hand, the ―culture‖ and ―identity‖ had to be
strictly connected to the own folk of the nation itself (Kadıoğlu, 1997). In a
parallel vein, in Modernizm ve Ulusun İnşası (originally published in English –
Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early
Republic, 2001), architectural historian Sibel Bozdoğan focuses on the late 1930s
when the Republican People‘s Party (RPP), as the party in power, declared a new
understanding of history which rejects the Ottoman past and insists on creating a
new ―Turkishness‖ with its own national history (Bozdoğan, 2012).
Thus, in order to construct a new national identity, the RPP, Young Turks and
intellectuals aimed to ground a new Turkish identity on a Turkish past which was
separated from those of the Ottoman. Following the new reformist Turkish
manner, nationalist movements were accelerated with a search for a national
history, identity and its architecture as physical representations of the nationalist
goals in the urban context. In this way, the modern architecture became an
instrument which creates its own architectural language by smybolizing the new
national identity of the country (Bozdoğan, 2012). A new national memory and its
identity were produced via the modern public buildings especially in governmental
offices, party buildings, post offices, museums, national libraries and archives as
concrete symbols of the newly constructed Turkish Republic. Also,
commemoration ceremonies, monuments and statues of succesful political figures
of Turkey became important tools for constructing and symbolizing the new
national identity and its national memory.
Vol. 5, No. 1 Taraz & Yılmaz: The Grand National Assembly of Turkey and its…
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In her dissertation ―Making a National Architecture: Architecture and the
Nation-state in Early Republican Turkey‖ (1998), architect and architectural
historian Elvan Ergut comprehensively handles the conceptualization of national
architecture by discussing the nation-building as a process instead of an end
product, which can be represented through architecture. Mainly criticizing the
general attempts to formulate the national architecture and nation-building as
stable concepts which the latter was represented by the former, Ergut emphasizes
that nationalism as a process ―creates, invents, imagines, and construct nations‖
(Ergut, 1998). By placing nation-building process at the center, Ergut establishes
correlational links between cultural, social, political and economic contexts with
the national architecture. Thus, the architectural products are handled as
meaningful entities which are produced and at the same time, produce the national
representations in the urban context (Ergut, 1998).
On the one hand, Ergut highlights the idea that nation-building and its
architectural representations are synchronous and interacting notions, in
Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türk Mimarisi (Turkish Architecture in the Republican
Period, 1996), art historian Metin Sözen handles architecture as a product of
changing contexts and establishes his nationalism discussion on the remarked
phases of architectural evolution of Turkey in the first half of the 20th century.
Handling architecture as the products of the national identity construction, Sözen
looks backwards and begins his national identity discussion by marking the
Second Constitutional Era (SCE) in 1908 and the First National Style as the
beginning of the nationalism movements in architecture. During the following
decade of the SCE, Sözen mentions increasing Turkism idea which was tried to be
integrated all social and cultural networks of the country (Sözen, 1996). On the
one hand, a search for a new national attitude was continuing by the Turkish
architects, on the other hand, there was a remarkable tendency to re-interpret
Ottoman details within the name of the First National Style (Sözen, 1996).
In a similar way, architectural historian İnci Aslanoğlu evaluates architecture
in Turkey as an active part of changing contexts which lead a new understanding
towards Turkish nationalism by advocating the idea that ―architecture is not an
isolated entity in itself‖ (Aslanoğlu, 2010). Accordingly, by focusing on the
changing political, socio-cultural and economic contexts of Turkey, Aslanoğlu
constructs her discussion on the changing architectural manner of the country in
two main historical periods in 1920s and 1930s. Although the circumstances are
highly different in these periods, both have similar underlying reasons in
declaration and propagation of the new Turkish national identity. On the one hand,
the author defines 1920s as ―the years of shortage‖ when the destructive effects of
the war were tried to be healed and Ankara was re-constructed as the new capital
of the Republic; the 1930s is defined as a period when the new architectural
attempts were tried in public and private constructions (Aslanoğlu, 2010).
In 1920s, Aslanoğlu‘s first classification corresponds to the First National
Style in Turkey when the ―history-based‖ architectural manner is used to declare
newly introduced nationalism attitude in the built environment (Aslanoğlu, 2010).
Accordingly in the First National Style, the Ottoman revivalism is highly used to
provide a connection with the historical background of the country and at the same
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time, to represent the uniqueness of the democratic republican understanding in
monumental scales (Aslanoğlu, 2010). In a parallel vein with Aslanoğlu,
Bozdoğan handles this period as the first steps towards a new architectural
language and construction techniques in Turkey beginning with the Ottoman
revivalism (Bozdoğan, 2012). On the one hand, the architectural products of the
First National Style had the characteristics of Ottoman architecture, on the other
hand, new design principles and the use of new construction materials were
combined in a modern way.
Ideologically and politically determined principles of the First National Style
were applied mostly in Ankara as the capital of ―the new Turkish nation.‖ As the
first building of the style, the office building of the Committee of Union and
Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti), was built in Ankara in 1917 by Salim and
Hasip Bey and then, the building was converted into the first national assembly of
Turkey in 1920 as the concrete declaration of the transition from monarchy to
democracy at the heart of the capital city (Bozdoğan, 2012). By housing the
rapturous periods of the newly establishing Republic, this building became the
core of the nationalist movements in the first quarter of the 20th century.
In 1924, the administrative core was moved to the Second Assembly of
Turkey, which was designed as the office building of the Republican People‘s
Party by the architect Vedat Tek. Then, the first national assembly was began to
serve as the Headquarter of the Republican People‘s Party building and law school
up to its conversion into the Museum of Grand National Assembly in 1961 and the
Independence War Museum in 1981.
From its opening in 1924 to the completion of contemporary assembly
building of Turkey in 1961, the second assembly of the Republic became a
concrete representation of Ataturk‘s principles and reforms, contemporary trends
and nationalist movements. In the opening ceremony of the second national
assembly, a striking opening speech was made by reading ―… the new Turkey
state is a people‘s state, but in the past, it was a state of one person… The grand
thought movements which rescued the certain societies from captivity and
liberated them are the archenemies of people who relied upon obsolete institutions
and decayed regimes… The new Turkey state is the representation of this grand
idea which dominates the world and a realized example of its actualization‖
(www.tbmm.gov.tr).
In this way, the nationalist manner of the time and its architectural
symbolization in the urban context was publicly declared and propagated upon the
second assembly building of the country. After to the opening of the third and
contemporary assembly in 1961, the second was converted into the Museum of
Republic in 1979, which has been stayed in use until today.
At the end of the 1920s, counter-views on the First National Style began to
emerge upon the idea that the Ottoman revivalism was an outdated fashion which
had to be abandoned in order to reach a modern architectural under-standing based
on functional and rational approach (Bozdoğan, 2012). These rejections increased
rapidly and in 1930s and, the First National Style was abandoned with a counter
movement: the New Architecture. In order to create a new understanding in
architectural language representing the Turkish nation, the local architects
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advocated the idea that the ongoing Ottoman-revivalism has to come a halt and a
new modern, functional and rational architecture is needed to propagate
Turkishness on the world stage.
Overlapping with Bozdoğan, Aslanoğlu classifies this period beginning with
the International Style, to the Neo-Classical Style and finally ends with the Second
National Style (Aslanoğlu, 2010). Accordingly, the main reason for this three-
staged progress, Aslanoğlu mentions the co-working of the foreign and local
architects to construct national architecture of the Republic (Aslanoğlu, 2010). On
the one hand, the foreign architects, such as Giulio Mongeri, Ernst Egli, Bruno
Taut and Martin Elsaesser, etc. preferred the monumental architectural style to
propagate nationalism, the Turkish architects used western-focused rational and
functional attitude in architecture. In this way, monumental, symmetrical and
highly decorative attitudes of the First National Style was replaced by purist,
simple and functional architectural manner in the International Style (Aslanoğlu,
2010). As Aslanoğlu stresses, the International Style was realized with concrete
skeleton systems, plain roofs, cubical masses, asymmetrical volumes which were
organized with the form-function relationship (Aslanoğlu, 2010). Especially in this
period, Sedad Hakkı Eldem contributes greatly to the International Syle in Turkey
with residential and storage buildings (Bayan Firdevs Evi and SATİE Storage) in
İstanbul (Aslanoğlu, 2010).
Secondly, the Neo-Classical Style became another main architectural
tendency in the 1930s. At that time, not only Turkey but also the other countries in
the world, such as France and Germany, widely used the monumental
representation of the Neo-Classical style in their architectural products to declare
their states‘ independence and freedom via the gloriousness of the built
environment. Thus, the majority of the monumental Neo-Classical buildings were
the products of the foreign architects who were invited to participate in the
establishment of the new architectural language of Turkey, while the functional
International Style was generally preferred by the Turkish architects (Aslanoğlu,
2010). However, Şekip Akalın‘s Ankara Station, Bedri Uçar‘s Turkish State
Railways Building and Sedad Hakkı Eldem‘s Inhisar General Directorate
Building are amongst the leading examples of monumental Neo-Classical
understanding of the time designed by the Turkish architects (Aslanoğlu, 2010).
As a result of the major domination of the foreign professionals in the Turkish
national arhitecture, the Second National Style was emerged as a common reaction
to the activities of the foreigners in the late 1930s. Aslanoğlu explains this phase of
the architectural search of Turkey as an escape from the foreign influences in
national architecture and the will to prove the sufficiency of Turkish architects to
declare new Turkish identity in their own architectural products (Aslanoğlu, 2010).
Although the architectural manner is generally focused on the products of Turkish
architects, the existing circumstances on the construction and design techniques
resulted in involuntary collaboration with foreigners. Leadingly, the Austrian
architect Clemens Holzmeister became one of the most important architects of the
Second National Style in Turkey by designing the ministry buildings of Defense,
Interior, Public Works and Presidency of the Judicial Council in Ankara,
additionally to his public building designs in the city.
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At this time, the most popular architectural publications of the era – journals
of Mimar, Mimarlık and Arkitekt – become significant indicators of ongoing
discontent on ―foreign architect admiration‖ through the articles of well-known
Turkish architects and planners. In his detailed book on the foreign architects
problem in Turkey, architect Gürhan Tümer compares positive and negative
reactions on the collaborations with foreigners in the Republican period by
analyzing the articles of the time. While a group of administrators, architects,
planners and media professions were supporting the productive atmosphere of the
co-operations with foreign architects, a remarkable group rejected the dominant
influence of foreigners in the built environment. Basically regarding the cultural
concerns in discussion, the opposite group advocates the idea that a national
architecture of a country could only be properly realized by its own citizens
(Tümer, 1998).
As amongst the vigorous advocators of Turkish architects in national
discourse, architect Abidin Mortaş expresses his discontent by saying ―we are not
engaging in a mere nationalism demagoguery. We are justifiably advocating that it
is necessary to be proud of the products of a well-educated Turkish group, instead
of blindly and uncomprehendingly appreciating all foreign works in this
country...‖ (Tümer, 1998). Similarly, another well-known architect of the time,
Şevki Balmumcu argues the journalist Falih Rıfkı Atay‘s positive opinions on the
foreign collaborations by writing ―we are inviting Falih Rıfkı Atay for making a
proper analysis and observation on the situation we are in... Then, of course, he
will understand the circumstances and write again...‖ (Tümer, 1998).
In brief, the comprehensively changing political and socio-cultural context of
Turkey in the 20th century physically manifested itself in the built environment
which was shaped under the effect of multiple perspectives on modernity,
nationality and its architectural representations in the urban context. Especially
Ankara became one of the most important stages of the new nationalist attitude in
the country by representing the new Republican identity of Turkey as the capital
city. Long-standing searches for the construction and representation of the Turkish
nationalism concretized in architectural spaces of the capital especially beginning
with the First National Style in the early 1920s. Then, the architectural manner
evolved and developed with the followed-up styles with the participation of
important foreign architects of the time. In 1930s, the Second National Style
emerged as the representation of a more settled and embraced nationalist attitude
in the built environment with its own structural language and representative
symbolism.
In comparison with the transition atmosphere of the 1920s, the more
established and stable nationalist manner of Turkey in the 1930s needed a new
administrative core which carries all the modern and reformist symbols of the
Republican identities. Thus, the government decided to declare, propagate and
represent its grandeur national existence and stability via its official administra-
tive building by symbolizing the established democratic regime and its citizens as
the primary actors of the Republic. Within this purpose, an international design
competition was held in 1937 with a brief invitation text declaring ―we need an
assembly building which symbolizes the continuity of the monumental Republic
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of Turkey and which overlaps the contemporary architectural trends of our era in
the 20th century‖ (www.kultur.gov.tr).
Representation of a Nation in the Urban Context: The GNAT and the
Ministries Quarter
As the product of a foreign architect in the Second National Style, the Grand
National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) was designed by the Austrian architect
Clemens Holzmeister in 1938 and, after its completion in 1961, the building has
stayed in use up today. In addition to the invitation text, the competition committee
declared the necessities for the assembly as ―the competition aims to construct a
monumental representation of the Turkish Republic in the 20th century stage which
has to symbolize the perfect and pure manner in architectural style, in addition to
its grand and detailed programme‖ (Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012). In
contrast to the first two assemblies of Turkey, the GNAT became the first
administration core of the country which is constructed as an assembly from the
beginning (To make it clear, the first assembly was formerly used as the office
buliding of the Committee of Union and Progress and similarly, the second was
used as the office of the Republican People‘s Party before its use as the second
assembly of Turkey.). In the January of 1937, the international competition was
declared with the decisions of the Chairmanship Council (Riyaset Divanı) and
GNAT Presidency Council - Competition Commission (TBMM Başkanlık Divanı
Yarışma Komisyonu) with the jury members, W.M. Dudok from Holland, I.
Tengbom from Sweden and H. Robertson from England (Yarım Asırlık Meclis
Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012).
In the January of 1938 (see Figure 1 for the announcemnet of the winning
project), Holzmeister‘s project got the first place and the construction was began in
1939 up to the the obligatory break in 1941 when the World War II affected all the
countries with the limited work force due to the large-scale economic and political
crisis (Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012). After a year, construction
began again with a detailed division of labour consisted of Turkish, English and
Swedish architects, engineers and contractors. Additionally, the architect Ziya
Payzın, who was the student of Holzmeister at the time, was also charged with the
detail drawings of the project (Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012). Then,
in 1948, Payzın was fully tasked with the supervision and control of the project up
to the completion. Before its opening as the assembly, the GNAT was firstly used
for the meeting space of CENTO (The Central Treaty Organization) in 1957 and
four years later, the building was officially opened as the last and contemporary
assembly of Turkey (Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012).
By keeping in mind briefly the chronological history of the GNAT, it has also
vital importance to understand the symbolic representation of the campus in the
urban structure in a larger scale. As mentioned previously, the nationalist manner
in the newly established Republic manifested itself in the built environment
through architecture and its iconographic representations in the urban context,
especially in the Ankara as the capital. In a parallel vein, the city has passed an
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overall re-construction process to become the new and modern core of the Turkish
Republic, which comes into existence independently from the centuries old center
of the country, İstanbul. Thus, within the frameworks of the new necessities of a
Republican capital city, the urban scale re-organization of Ankara was firstly
realized by the German architect Carl Christopher Lörcher in 1924.
Figure 1. Announcement of the Winning Project for the Grand National Assembly
Complex – Ulus Newspaper, 23rd
February 1938
Source: National Library of Turkey, Periodicals Archive.
Basically, the Lörcher plan (Figure 2) divides the city into two main regions
as the Old and New City which were organized according to the specific
functional zones in the urban structure. In ―Türkiye için Modern ve Planlı Bir
Başkent Kurmak: Ankara 1920-1950‖ (Making a Modern and Planned Capital
City for Turkey: Ankara 1920-1950), Cengizkan defines Old City of Lörcher as
the accommodational areas for the fast growing population of Ankara, while the
New City is privatized for the public and governmental needs of the capital
(Cengizkan, 2018). In this respect, Çankaya neighborhood was firstly designed
where the governmental buildings of the Republic are located around the public
parks and squares accessed through wide boulevards (Cengizkan, 2018). In his
another chapter in Clemens Holzmiester: An Architet at the Turn of the Era
(2010), Cengizkan defines Çankaya region in detail with a special emphasis on the
Ministries Quarter which was proposed in Lörcher‘s plan ―with a wage-shaped site
allotment‖ housing the ministry buildings, the Grand National Assembly Campus
and a public park in the zone (Cengizkan, 2010).
In 1927, the proposed zones and the city planning decisions remained
incapable for the needs and the three of well-known city planners of the era were
invited to Ankara for a more developed city plan proper to the capital of the
Turkish Republic. At this point, in Architecture, Power, and National Identity
(1992), urban designer and planner Lawrence Vale describes Ankara as ―the
reconfiguration of the distribution of political, cultural and economic power in the
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new state‖ and thus, the capital needs a more stable and organized urban layout to
be an innovative and modern representation of the Republic (Vale, 2008).
Amongst the plans of Jansen, Jausseley and Brix, Jansen‘s proposal was approved
with his Garden City concept consisted of a central green area with surrounding
neighborhoods as educational, governmental, accommodational and working
zones (Vale, 2008).
Figure 2. Lörcher Plan, 1924
Source: http://www.goethe.de
Basically, the second city plan proposals were supposed to follow basic
design principles of Lörcher‘s, regarding the zoning strategy with the preservation
and development of the Ministries Quarter in Çankaya (Cengizkan, 2010).
Importantly, as one of the striking representations of the Turkish Republic in the
urban context, the main axis of the new city plan was called as the Atatürk
Boulevard, who was the founder of the new country. As stated in the Presidency
Senate publication of TBMM Kampüsünün Dünü-Bugünü-Yarını (1976), the
Ministries Quarter formerly called as the Cumhuriyet Anıtı (the Monument of
Republic) by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to symbolically represent the new Turkey
with its Republican state buildings and the contemporary assembly building at the
heart of the city (TBMM Kampüsünün Dünü-Bugünü-Yarını, 1976).
Accordingly, the future development of Ankara was determined toward south
and the zones were re-organized with the new neighborhood proposals regarding
their functions as education, accommodation or working areas (Cengizkan, 2018).
As the administrational zone, the former proposal of Lörcher‘s triangular
governmental area was preserved and Jansen collaborated with Holzmeister for
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construction and location of the state buildings (Cengizkan, 2010). Chronologically
developed with the constructions of the ministries of National Defense, Interiors,
Public Works, Economics and Agriculture, the administrational zone was
organized towards the north (Figure 3), where the Grand National Assembly was
located on the highest point of the area (Cengizkan, 2010).
Figure 3. Jansen Plan, 1927
Source: Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl, 10.
Importantly in the new plan, the governmental zone needed to have a public
area where the administratives and citizens could ―meet‖ proper to the ideological
basis of the democratic Republic. In this way, as Demirkol stated in her
dissertation, the Güven Park and Güven Anıtı (Security Monument and the
Security Monument) were located on the southern area of the zone to link the city
physically and visually to the Grand National Assembly on the north through the
Atatürk Boulevard as the main axis (Demirkol, 2009). Thus, the reliability and
stability of the state is publicly declared at the beginning of its fundamental
administrative axis which continues with the ministry buildings of the Republic
(Demirkol, 2009).
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On the one hand, when the construction of the GNAT was completed in 1961,
the building was ready for the administrative meetings and for functioning as a
parliament building with its completed convention halls, offices, grand rooms and
proper technical details such as heating-cooling or ventilation. However, the
symbolic additions to represent democratic Turkish nation and its long-lasted
history have to be physically declared in the GNAT. Thus, under the light of
Holzmeister‘s project, the GNAT have various symbolic details in the building
scale from the entrance to the lightenings and material decisions in structure. In
this way, the urban scale symbolization of the campus was completed with the
interior details in the GNAT proper to the new democratic regime of the long-lived
Anatolia lands.
Symbols of a Nation: Iconographic Details in the Grand National Assembly
of Turkey
Clearly, the GNAT leaves an iconographic mark in the urban context by
locating at the highest point of the city and by surrounding new Republican state
buildings and public parks in its immediate vicinity. From its design and
construction phases to the official use as parliament building of the Turkish
Republic in 1961, the GNAT imprinted on the memories as an achitectural
representation of the new Turkish national identity by becoming a meeting point
for Turkish people with their administrators through the physical and ideological
symbols of the Republic.
When the new understanding of Turkey in the 20th century was necessitated a
new manner in political behavior of the state, naturally, the capital city is needed a
new grandeur architectural representation of the Republic in the urban context to
propagate and declare the durable and stable national character of the Turkish
state. From this perspective, in her dissertation, Demirkol states that the GNAT
campus was designed regarding certain design principles to increase the
―readability and orientation of the crowds‖ in special meetings of the state proper
to the political mind of a democratic regime (Demirkol, 2009). Thus, the space
organization of the GNAT was designed around green areas, squares, courtyards,
forecourts and wide meeting halls which would properly function as meeting areas
for the upper statesmen, parliament members and public (Demirkol, 2009).
However, the wide courtyards of the assemby complex received public events
only in certain times such as the sod-tuning ceremony in 1939 or the opening
ceremony of the Atatürk Monument in 1981. In large part of the gatherings were
realized by the political figures of the time and in this way, the GNAT courtyards
were used actively not by public but by the statesmen, especially in inauguration
ceremonies of political periods.
In this way, it is aimed to construct unity and solidarity of the Turkish nation
around the shared values of people and their collective activities in special national
connotations. The celebrations of national bairams and opening ceremonies of the
government annually become significant unifying occasions in the Republic,
which strengthens and consolidates the national identification and sense of
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belonging in masses through architecture. By placing architectural artefacts at the
core of the collective occasions in societies as stages for the construction of
national identity, this paper includes memory discussion by handling the GNAT as
a significant memory space for the Turkish Republic. In this way, the iconographic
remark of the GNAT in the collective memories of Turkish people is tried to
understand by handling the building as an architectural artefact housing various
symbolic details referring to the long-lived history of the Turkish states and its
firm national shared values.
From this perspective, in Memory and Material Culture, Jones handles
architecture as concretization of collective memory by evaluating them by being
storages of ―symbols‖ and ―units of information‖ (Jones, 2007). Accordingly, not
only artefacts but also all kind of materials from history onwards such as stone
tablets to the photographs and computerized systems are accepted as memory
storages (Jones, 2007). Focusing on the material culture and their relation with
society, Jones places memorialization and recollection ways at the heart of his
discussion by asking ―how things help societies remember?‖ (Jones, 2007). Thus,
all the materials as memory storages have implicit meanings immanently which
become invaluable witnesses of history (Jones, 2007). Importantly, Jones
emphasizes that the material culture of a society can not provide remembering by
itself but can open the roads by preparing collective occasions to recollection
through collectively shared experiences (Jones, 2007). In a parallel vein, the
GNAT have various symbolic details in the inner and outer spaces of the assembly
complex, which become active participators of the collective national ocassions
and stages for the construction of a national imagery integral to the political core
of the Republic.
Figure 4. Aerial Perspective of the GNAT Campus from the Sketches of Clemens
Holzmeister
Source: Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl, 17.
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Within this framework, the symbolic references in the GNAT can be divided
into two main periods as dating back to the beginning of the 1960s and to the last
years of the 1970s. Accordingly, the first phase overlaps with the opening years of
the GNAT, which were produced according to the Holzmeister‘s original project
and structural details (Figure 4). As stated in the competition text, the GNAT have
to become an iconographic representation of the stable and durable existence of
the Turkish Republic which draws its strength from the centuries old Turkish
states in history.
Beginning from the outer space of the GNAT housing the opening ceremonies
of the state and national bairam celebrations, the Turkish flag in the central point
of the grand courtyard symbolizes the stability, sovereignty and invincibility of the
Republic (Figure 5). Thus, this flag have never hauled down in any circumstances
which struggles the country deeply (Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012).
Then, the main entrance gate of the GNAT is realized from the Şeref Kapısı (The
Honorary Gate), which have also symbolic details in its ornament. Accordingly,
the wattling pattern of the door symbolizes the indivisible integrity of the Turkish
Republic through the inseparable knitting. By carrying the star and the crescent as
the symbols of the Turkish Republic, the Honorary Gate can only be used by the
president of the Republic and the chairperson of the parliament (Yarım Asırlık
Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012). Additionally, the gates of the president and the
chairperson differentiates in passing through the general convention hall of the
GNAT. Here, the Damlalı / Salkım Kapı (The Drop / Bunch Door) is ornamented
with sixteen drop figures to symbolize sixteen Turkish states in the history.
Figure 5. The Turkish Flag (uppermost), Honorary Gate (lower-left) and the
Water Drop Door of the Grand National Assembly.
Source: Buildings of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, 20, 25, 27.
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As a continuation of the symbolic representations of the long-lived existence
of the Turkish states, sixteen crystal chandeliers (Figure 6) illuminate the general
convention hall (Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012). In addition to the
object-scale and ornamental details in the GNAT, the material selections are made
of Afyon marbles to declare and propagate the local wealth of the country in
construction materials. Importantly, as another significant symbols, the figures of
anther and leo are higly used in the campus to symbolize agricultural activity of
Turkey and the power symbol used from the times of the Hittites in Anatolia
(Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl , 2012).
Figure 6. The Chandeliers of the General Hall of the GNAT, Symbolically
Representing the Sixteen Turkish States
Source: Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl, 74,76.
On the one hand, the symbolic interior details representing the long history of
the Turkish state date back to the Holzmeister‘s original project for the GNAT, the
second phase of the representations of the Turkish Republic corresponds to the last
years of the 1970s when, the Committee of Monuments and Buildings (Anıtlar ve
Yapılar Hazırlık Komitesi) held a meeting for receiving opinions to construct
monuments inner and outer spaces of the assembly symbolizing the principles of
Atatürk and the Turkish national existence. In his opening speech for this meeting,
the President of the Republic Senate Tekin Arıburun declared that ―what is a
Turkish state? How long has it been on these lands? How it has gained its
democratic character? These questions are frequently discussed in the assembly,
but all the spoken words fly away. There are not any trace remains from these
words... Here, you are supposed to concrete these discussions physically in the
assembly... The story of the Turkish nation have to be seen, read and felt in the
building...‖ (TBMM Anıtlar Dizisi – Önfikir Araştırması I. Toplantı, Bildiriler ve
Tutanaklar, 1976). In these words, Arıburun clearly expresses the iconographic
role of the GNAT for the Turkish nation by placing the building as a monumental
representation of the Republic. By handling newly built statues and monuments in
the GNAT campus as meaningful entities, Arıburun ideologically links the
existence of the assembly with the existence of the Republic.
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Moreover, Ziya Payzın, who was the chief architect of the assembly in the
construction process, declares ―...the Committee of Monuments and Buildings
decided that the north-south axis of the assembly will be furnished with statues
representing the development of the Turkish national history, and the east-west
axis will be furnished with the statues of the history of Turkish principles. It has
vital important to decide which themes and principles have to be represented in the
GNAT. Thus, this meeting is organized and asked for help from the science and
the nation‖ (TBMM Anıtlar Dizisi – Önfikir Araştırması I. Toplantı, Bildiriler ve
Tutanaklar, 1976).
As clearly stated in the selected speeches, the GNAT was placed at the center
of collective events of the Turkish nation through the physical representations of
the Republic. In this way, the outdoor of the GNAT become a common stage for
the nation where the ceremonies, celebrations and commemorations have regularly
repeated to keep alive the memories of the Republic and the Turkish national
identity (Figure 7). In a parallel vein, celebrations, ceremonies or inaugural
gatherings for political periods open roads for remembering by establishing living
connections between the artefacts and societies.
Figure 7. The Opening Ceremony of the GNAT in 1961
Source: Yarım Asırlık Meclis Binası: 51. Yıl, 106, 107.
By specifically discussing commemorations, Jones points out the repetitive
character of collective occasions which are commonly shared by people at certain
times and certain places (Jones, 2007). Accordingly, on the one hand the collective
rituels by itself becomes a storage for memory, on the other hand, all the actors in
this process from the architectural artefact housing the ceremony to the speeches
are included in material culture and discussed as memory storages of recollection
for future generations.
In this respect, symbolic details discussed above have equal importance in
propagating and representing the Turkish national identity in the building scale
through the national celebrations of the Republic. While the ceremonial occassions
have been conducting in the front square of the GNAT, the flying Turkish flag,
grandiosely ornamented gates of the parliament building and the Atatürk
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Monument explicitly refer to the symbols of Turkishness from the history
onwards. In this respect, the construction and consolidation process of the Turkish
national identity is fed from the ceremonies and their symbolic agents in the
building scale as the memory spaces of the Republic.
From a similar perspective, in Time and Memory, Crawford discusses
commemorations as instruments to meet past and the present, remembering and
forgetting (Crawford, 2005). By drawing attention of their collective occurrence,
Crawford evaluates commemorations as intentional meetings where ―the
experiences and recollections of individuals weaved into a communal fabric‖
(Crawford, 2005). Importantly in Crawford‘s approach, commemoration operates
as a tool which blurs individual boundaries in order to create a collective
belonging in a society, especially based on a collectively shared historical past.
Similar to Nora‘s approach, commemorations become the repetitions of ―learned
stories‖ in place of remembrance of a historical past (Crawford, 2005). In this way,
they operate as ―attractors‖ and starting points for planned future constructions
which draw their strenghts from history itself (Crawford, 2005). Parallel with this
understanding in practice, the meetings of the Committee of Monuments and
Buildings (Anıtlar ve Yapılar Hazırlık Komitesi) in 1976, point out a construction
process of a collective ceremonial areas and landmarks in the GNAT complex to
keep alive the memories of the Republic in symbolic details and monuments.
As the first initiation of the Committee was the national competition for the
Atatürk Monument of the GNAT in 1978. Previously, in Holzmeister project of
the GNAT, the Atatürk Monument was proposed in detail on the roof of the front
facade of the parliament building (Figure 8). However, as Demirkol states, this
proposal contradicted with the ideological mindset of the Republic, which aims to
connect the administrative leaders to the nation democratically and equally. Thus,
―the founder of the Republic have to be represented as a civilian but not as a
commander.‖ Holzmeister‘s proposal was not applied and a new competition was
held (Demirkol, 2009).
Figure 8. Holzmeister’s Proposal for the Atatürk Monument on the Roof of the
Front Facade of the Grand National Assembly
Source: Demirkol, ―A Reading on Atatürk Monument in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey:
From Idealized to Realized‖, 95.
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Amongst 43 competitors, sculptor Hüseyin Gezer and architect İmran Gezer‘s
monument proposal was selected (Figure 9). In the report of the winning proposal,
Gezer states that ―we are primarily supposed to design a monument with its
surrounding landscape area which allows to organize public meetings and
ceremonies. Thus, in order to properly represent Atatürk and to conduct collective
events, we proposed an integral project with an amphi and a circular platform
located in front of the parliament building... The surrounding facades are desgined
to narrate Atatürk in reliefs and inscriptions... In this way, the Atatürk Epic is
expressed on wide surfaces while composing a ceremonial area in the middle of
the biographical narratives... At the end of the relief and inscription compositions,
the Atatürk Monument locates as an ending point by symbolizing the well-known
words of Atatürk, freedom and independence is my character...‖ (Arkitekt, 1979).
Figure 9. Holzmeister’s Proposal for the Atatürk Monument on the Roof of the
Front Facade of the Grand National Assembly
Source: Demirkol, The Turkish Grand National Assembly Complex: An Evaluation of the Function
and Meaning of Parliamentary Spaces, 115.
In 1981, the opening of the Atatürk Monument was held with a well-attended
public ceremony as it was supposed in the competition text (Figure 10 & 11).
Then, the monument and its square become one of the most important ceremonial
area by housing the national bariam celebrations in keeping the memories of the
Republic. In addition to the concrete representation of the Republic in the GNAT
via structural and architectural details, the written and visual media have actively
participated to keep memories of the Republic in daily circulation through
photographs and news in periodicals. In Media and Memory, Garde-Hansen
discusses the representation of history through images, texts and narratives as tools
of ―media.‖ Accordingly, Garde-Hansen handles media as ―the first draft of
history‖ which connects historical events to the contemporary lives through the
instruments of representation and points out that media become a powerful tool by
including all kind of visual material evidence to declare hegemony of a society
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through national connotations (Garde-Hansen, 2011). Similarly, the power of
media was also used by the state of the time and the sod-turning ceremony of the
GNAT in 1939, the opening of the complex in 1961 and the first meeting of the
new Republic in the parliament forcefully announced in newspapers to imprint the
GNAT on memories as the iconographic representation of the Turkish national
identity.
Figure 10. The Opening Ceremony of Atatürk Monument in the Grand National
Assembly of Turkey in 1981.
Source: Demirkol, ―A Reading on Atatürk Monument in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey:
From Idealized to Realized‖, 99.
Figure 11. The Newspaper Headlines on the Sud-turning and Opening Ceremonies
of the GNAT
Source: National Library of Turkey, Periodicals Archive.
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Conclusion
Clearly, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey carries special meanings and
symbolic representations of the country where the Anatolian lands were
transformed into a homeland for Turkish nation. Both in abstract and concrete
symbols, the administrative core of the country become the durable and stable icon
of the long-lived existence of the Turkish nation from the centuries old history. As
a brief reminder, Nora points out that the architectural artefacts may transform into
laboratories for certain social, political or ideological objectives of states. In a
similar way, the Early Republican Period of Turkey have also these memory
spaces for constructing and declaring the comprehensive transformation of the
country towards democracy from the beginning of the last century.
As briefly discussed, the national architecture movements in the first half of
the 20th century and the search for a new architectural language for the Turkish
Republic are amongst significant mediators for the state to construct concrete links
between the new democratic citizens and their spaces to live in. Naturally, Ankara
becomes the prominent showcase of the Republic as the capital with the new city
planning proposals, accommodation and working zones, and recreation areas in
neighborhoods and state buildings in the Ministries Quarter.
On the one hand, these new proposals and applications in the urban structure
can be classified as larger-scale representations of the Republic in planning
decisions of the capital; on the other hand, each architectural construction in these
proposals have various symbols and remarks of the new national architectural
language of the country. Moreover, not only the Grand National Assembly but
also in a large number of components in the built environment of Ankara has kept
the memories of the Republic and the long-lived existence of Turkish states in
history today.
Importantly, the public character of the Grand National Assembly is worthy to
discuss considering the public use of the complex in special events. Although the
large courtyards and gardens of the campus were planned as living spaces of the
national celebrations with the participation of public, most of the time, these areas
became stages for only political figures in special times, especially for the opening
celebrations of the political periods. Generally, the public aspect of the complex
supported by the help of the written and visual media with publishing the inner
space photographs of the general meetings in party halls.
From this point of view, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey left remarks
on the memories of the Turkish nation in various scales. To make it clear, the
public use of the complex was underlined especially with the photographs of the
interior space of the building, administrative figures, leaders and moments in
political meetings and ceremonies via the printed media in daily life circulation.
On the other hand, the outer spaces of the building were actively used in certain
public events such as the sod-tuning ceremony of the complex in 1930s and the
opening ceremony of the Atatürk Monument in 1980s.
In this way, the Grand National Assembly becomes an important part of the
Turkish national identity construction period with its monumental representation
and the symbolic value in the memories from the early years of the 20th century.
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From its architectural competition text full of national connotations, to the
construction details proper to the Second National Architectural Movement and to
the monumental symbols in the inner and outer spaces of the campus, the Grand
National Assembly of Turkey has been staying in use as the living witness and
memory space of the Turkish Republic from its opening in 1961 until today in
various scales of representation.
References
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Turkish – ―The Atatürk Monument of the Grand National Assembly‖).
Aslanoğlu, İ. (2010) Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi Mimarlığı. (originally published in
Turkish – Early Republican Architecture: 1923-1938). İstanbul: Bilge Kültür Sanat.
Bastea, E. ed. by. (2004) Memory and Architecture. Mexico: New Mexico Press.
Bozdoğan, S. (2012) Translated by Tuncay Birkan. Modernizm ve Ulusun İnşası (originally
published in English – Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture
in the Early Republic, 2001). İstanbul: Metis Yayınları.
Cengizkan, A. (2010) ―Holzmeister, et al. A Mise en Scene for Republican Power:
Representations in the Ministries Quarter, Ankara.‖ In Clemens Holzmeister: An
Architect at the Turn of the Era. İstanbul: Boyut Yayıncılık.
Cengizkan, A. ―Türkiye için Modern ve Planlı Bir Başkent Kurmak: Ankara 1920-1950.‖
(originally published in Turkish – ―Construction of a Modern and Planned Capital for
Turkey: Ankara 1920-1950‖) Available from: http://www.goethe.de [Accessed:
9.3.2018]
Crawford, M. (2005) ―Commemoration: Where Remembering and Forgetting Meet‖, in
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Middle East Technical University.
Ergut, T. E. (1998) ―Making a National Architecture: Architecture and the Nation-state in
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Group.
Garde-Hansen, J. (2011) Media and Memory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Halbwachs, M. (1992) On Collective Memory (trans. and ed. by Lewis A. Coser). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Jones, A. (2007) Memory and Material Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kadıoğlu, A. (1997) ―Cumhuriyetin Kuruluş Yıllarında Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Çelişkisi ve
SeçkinlerinTavrı.‖ (―The Paradox in Turkish Nationalism in the Founding Years of the
Republic and the Republican Elite‖). In Cumhuriyet, Demokrasi ve Kimlik
Sempozyumu Kitabı, Ankara: Bağlam.
Lowenthal, D. (2005) Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nora, P. Hafıza Mekanları. (2006) Translated by Mehmet Emin Özcan (originally
published in French, Les Lieux de Memoire, 1984). Ankara: Dost Kitabevi Yayınları.
Sözen, M. (1996) Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türk Mimarisi (originally published in Turkish -
Turkish Architecture in the Republican Period). İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası
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TBMM Anıtlar Dizisi – Önfikir Araştırması I. Toplantı, Bildiriler ve Tutanaklar (1976)
(originally published in Turkish - GNAT Monuments Series: The First Meeting of the
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Past-Present-Future of the GNAT Campus). Ankara: Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi
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Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies January 2019
57
Determinants and Effects of Vertical Integration
on the Performance of Moroccan Manufacturing
By Mohamed Hamdaoui & Brahim Bouayad
†
In this paper we study the vertical integration of the Moroccan industrial sector, its
determinants and its effects on the economic performance of the sector and on the
economy in general. A key aspect of our analysis is to present the link between the theories
of the firm and vertical integration, and the incentives to vertical integration according to
two approaches: monopoly theory and efficiency. Next, we also present the choice of
integration measure, their determinants and their effects on economical performance. Our
findings show that the Moroccan industry is characterized by the weakness and dispersion
of the degree of vertical integration. They also show the existence of a correlation between
the degree of vertical integration and market factors. Thus, the degree of integration of
industries is explained, essentially, by the basic conditions and the structures of the
industrial sector, particularly, the degree of concentration, the capital intensity, the level
of the barriers to entry, the importance of economies of scale and the rate of sales growth.
These factors also reflect the hypotheses of the main explanatory theories of vertical
integration, particularly those of monopoly and efficiency. The latter finding reveals,
however, a negative correlation between the degree of vertical integration and the
profitability of industrial firms. This confirms the idea that integration is usually
accompanied by significant costs (bureaucratic costs, costs resulting from changes in
incentives) that offset its savings (savings in transaction costs, savings related to monopoly
power).
Keywords: Vertical Integration, Theory of the Firm, Industry, Morroco
JEL Classification: L6, L42, D21, D52
Introduction
It is difficult to treat the theories of the firm (as a production process)
without mentioning a certain degree of vertical integration1. This complexity
poses many theoretical and empirical difficulties for the treatment of both
approaches. The use of vertical integration is usually justified by some to
increase market power of firms, and for others, by the will to increase the
efficiency of firms.
Note that the question of the firm‘s vertical dimension relates to several
disciplines. In the first place, the theory of vertical integration occupies an
important place in economics and particularly the theory of the firm. This
Professor, Economics Department and Laboratory for Research in, Energy Economics,
Environment and Resources (GREER), Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco. †Professor, Economics Department and Director, Laboratory for Research in, Energy Economics,
Environment and Resources (GREER), Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco.
1―The transfer from one department to another of a good or a service which could be sold on a
market without major adaptation" (Adelman, 1949, p. 29).
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58
importance is justified by the need to determine the optimal vertical size of the
firm. Secondly, lawyers are increasingly interested in the theory of vertical
integration due to the contributions and insights it has brought to the contract
theory and its fundamental contribution to antitrust laws. This interest
translates, thus, the deep conviction of the researchers that the resolution of the
problems of the firm goes first by the understanding of the functioning of this
one and the different relations it maintains with the other economic agents.
Finally, the strategy of vertical integration is a controversial topic for strategic
management and business leaders, due notably to mixed results of vertical
mergers operations that have marked the last decades. Nevertheless, it still
constitutes the frame of reference in all decisions relating to the choice between
―make or buy‖ and continues to occupy an important place in the vertical
development strategies of firms.
Generally, the vertical integration theory studies the different incentives
for firms to produce the goods and services they need for their production
processes instead of using the market, and to examine the effects of this choice
on firm performance and vertical structures. Thus, theorists were led to define
precisely the different dimensions of vertical integration and to mark the
boundaries it has with other forms of vertical relations. They were thus faced
with many methodological, theoretical and practical difficulties.
The first problem encountered by economists was to give a convincing
definition of the notions of ―firm‖ and ―vertical integration‖. Indeed, economic
theory proposes multiple approaches of the firm. Some of them emphasize the
technological dimension by considering the firm as a production function,
while others place more emphasis on its contractual forms.
The second problem concerns the delimitation of the various forms of
vertical relations. Usually, companies often choose between making or buying
a product or a service. But, in practice, these two choices are only the extreme
solutions of a continuum of possible vertical relations. These relationships
include, indeed, all forms of quasi-integration, partnerships and long term
contracts. Faced with this multitude of alternatives, it is often difficult to draw
a hermetic line between integration in the strict sense and all other forms of
non-integration.
The third problem is a direct consequence of the previous ones and is
particularly relevant to the question of measuring vertical integration. Indeed,
the choice of a measure must faithfully represent the definition of vertical
integration and must clearly differentiate it from other forms of relationship.
So, the measurement index should be able to quantify internal transfers to the
company, which seems to be difficult for both methodological and practical
reasons.
The last problem relates, in turn, to the specification of the main
determinants of vertical integration and the assessment of its effects on
economical performance. In this context, the economic theory creates a great
debate, opposing the opponents of the monopoly theory on one side, and those
of the efficiency on the other. The opposition of the reasoning of the two
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theories thus reflects the attitudes of their followers towards vertical integration
and its effects on social welfare.
In an effort to give answers to these problems, we will present in the first
section the main approaches of the firm and vertical integration. In the second
section, we will highlight the link between incentives for vertical integration
and efficiency issues. The characteristics of the Moroccan manufacturing
industries which constitute the scope of our study will be sketched in the third
section. Section four will present the choice of measurement and the numerical
results obtained. The last section will conclude.
Firm Approaches and Vertical Integration
Theories of the Firm
The concepts of firm and vertical integration pose many problems in their
definition. These problems relate, firstly, to the difficulty of apprehending
these concepts, and secondly, to the multiplicity of theoretical approaches in
the field.
The theory of the firm is characterized by a great diversity of approaches
that apprehend the firm under different angles of vision. The purpose of the
paper will, however, focus on those that define the firm by reference to its
vertical dimension. In this context, we distinguish the neoclassical approach
which emphasizes the technological dimension and considers the firm as a
production function, and the new contractual theories that focus more on
incentive issues and on the different forms of contracting.
As an economic agent, the firm ensures the production of goods and
services with the concern for a better allocation of economic resources. It must
first solve a technical problem by choosing the optimal combination of factors
of production that maximizes its output. Then, it must choose the level of
output that maximizes the profits. In other words, the necessary condition for
profit maximization is, generally, expressed by the equalization of the marginal
cost of production and the marginal revenue (price).
The marginalist view of the firm is open to criticism in more than one
aspects, especially for its optimizing behavior and its uniqueness of purpose. In
fact, members of an organization often use rough rules instead of complex
calculations, even more if we take into account the uncertainty of the forecasts
concerning contingent situations. In this case, the firm no longer controls all
the variables on which the achievement of its objective depends (Knight,
1933). Similarly, organizations can have many objectives that may conflict
with profit maximization, including survival, security, sales growth, leisure, or
the power of leaders (Monsen & Downs, 1965; Baumol, 1959; Cyert & March,
1963). The critics of neoclassical theory insist, therefore, on the lack of realism
of the objectives of this approach and its inability to apprehend the firm in
terms of its functioning, its behavior and its objective. It must be emphasized,
however, that the firm's model in the marginalist theory was not intended to
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explain and predict the behavior of firms in the real world, but rather to explain
and predict changes in observed prices. We must not, therefore, blame this
theory for an objective for which it was not conceived (Machlup, 1967).
The limitations of the neoclassical approach have, thus, contributed to the
appearance of many theories that attempt to provide a better description of the
functioning of the firm in the real world by insisting on the problems of
incentives and the different forms of contracting. This is notably the case of the
principal-agent theory, which defines the firm through the agency relationships
linking the different members of an organization, and which is essentially
based on the idea of separation between ownership and control, and divergence
or conflict of interests between shareholders and managers.
This approach consequently makes it possible to overcome certain
shortcomings of the neoclassical vision, by adopting an approach much closer
to the reality of modern firms and the relative demystification of the black box,
through the description of a significant aspect of the functioning of the firm.
However, the principal-agent approach remains unable to provide explanations
for certain points that seem essential to any objective theory of the firm, e.g.,
the approach does not describe the decision-making mechanisms and the role
of authority within a hierarchy. Thus, this theory is not able to describe the
relationship of the firm with other economic agents, as well as its relationship
with the market, and the restriction of these different relationships to agency
problems would be a too excessive reduction of reality.
Contrary to the agency's approach, the transaction costs theory is
particularly important because of the originality of its method and the
relevance of the questions it tries to answer. Indeed, the theory adopts a
contractual approach characterized by:
1. Adopting a microanalytical approach that retains the transaction as a
basic unit of analysis.
2. Retaining more realistic behavioral assumptions that are better adapted
to the functioning of the economic system.
3. Adopting an institutional analysis that considers the firm and the market
as two economic institutions with the same role in economic activity.
4. Considering the firm as a governance structure.
The transaction costs theory, thus, considers the firm and the market as
two alternative modes whose objective is the coordination of production.
Outside the firm, price movements guide production, which is coordinated
through a series of market exchanges. On the other hand, these market
transactions are eliminated within the firm where the coordinating entrepreneur
substitutes the complicated structure of exchanges. The choice is made,
therefore, between the coordination by the management and the coordination
by the prices. As a result, the form of organization that will be required for
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each transaction will be the one that results in the lowest transaction costs. This
principle acts, according to Coase (1937), by describing the growth and the
optimal size of a firm. However, the transaction costs theory has prompted
many critics that relate mainly to its low operational nature. In this context,
Clarke (1985) considers that the transactional theory of the firm was essentially
descriptive and it lacks operational content as it can not provide empirically
verifiable hypotheses. Similarly, Alchian and Demsetz (1972) criticize the
theory on two aspects. The first concerns the difficulty of formalizing its
assertions, in that it is often impossible to specify the nature of the transaction
costs. The second concerns the weakness of the dichotomy of the role of
authority in the firm and that of the price mechanism on the market.
The set of criticisms addressed to the transaction costs theory has given
rise to an important literature referring to the notion of incomplete contract.
This emphasizes the fact that the firm and the contract are different modes of
governance and considers the company as a particular way of specifying the
contingencies not provided for by a contract. This approach is based on the
idea that contracts are necessarily incomplete because some events are
unpredictable, or because there are too many to specify all in writing. In a
world characterized by incomplete contracts and high transaction costs, the
firm is defined by referring to the residual control rights conferred by the
ownership of the physical assets used in its production process. The property
rights approach, therefore, bases its reasoning on the idea that possession of an
asset provides the right to use it in all situations not specified by an incomplete
contract. However, these rights only concern physical assets, since they can be
sold and transferred in contrast to human assets. Thus, the reasoning of the
property rights theory does not make an explicit distinction between ownership
and control. However, this conception can be applied to small firms where
control is concentrated in the hands of the owners, but cannot be valid in
capital companies which are characterized by an increasingly marked divorce
between ownership and control. This deficiency, therefore, constitutes a
restriction of the approach to individual companies only.
The Concept of Vertical Integration
The concept of vertical integration has taken several meanings in the
literature with a common idea that the company sometimes chooses to
internalize certain operations instead of resorting to an external stakeholder.
This integration occurs if the structure includes two stages of production so that
all of the upstream stage production is used as input to the downstream stage
and all of the downstream stage requirements are provided by the upstream
stage (Perry, 1989).
This definition remains restrictive because it stipulates that the volume of
production at the upstream stage corresponds exactly to the input requirements
of the downstream stage. In other words, the upstream unit and the downstream
unit are respectively exclusive supplier and customer.
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As a result, the vertical integration is characterized by substituting the
internal exchange to trade or contract exchange, so that the goods in question
do not transit through the market and therefore do not refer to the market price.
Nevertheless, this substitution alone is not enough to define vertical
integration, but it requires that one must have full flexibility in making
production and distribution decisions in all the stages it controls (Coase, 1937).
To be able to ensure this coordination, the entrepreneur has a specific
instrument to the hierarchy, namely the authority. The latter is precisely what
defines a firm, since within it, the transactions result from the instructions and
orders of the leader. Vertical integration allows the firm to move from the
purchase of inputs to that of their production (Williamson, 1985).
Using a different logic, Grossman and Hart (1986) define vertical
integration as the ownership and absolute control of physical assets. Riordan
(1990), meanwhile, defines vertical integration as "the organization of two
successive stages of production by a single firm". He regards the firm as a legal
entity that holds assets and enters into commercial and financial contracts.
Therefore, the organization of a production process by a firm requires the
appropriation or purchase of inputs required for production. Riordan's
definition distinguishes the organization of a process and its control, which is
essentially a managerial function. The authority of the manager remains,
however, defined by a contract with the firm, which remains responsible for the
contractual obligations taken by the manager on its behalf.
Incentives for Vertical Integration and Efficiency Issues
The theory of vertical integration offers, of course, a large number of
determinants that we can group under two main currents: the theory of
monopoly is placed in the extension of the neoclassical tradition and that of
efficiency, represented, essentially, by the contractual theories of the firm.
Approach to Monopoly Theory
In this design, vertical integration is incompatible with perfect
competition1, because the different forms of imperfection create numerous
incentives for the integration of enterprises. Thus, a firm can integrate
vertically to reinforce its monopoly power and limit effective and potential
competition2. Similarly, vertical integration may be justified by the desire to
eliminate the various distortions created by monopolistic structures. Finally,
problems of uncertainty, agency problems and asymmetric information can be
determinants of integration, even in competitive structures.
1The perfection of the markets makes it possible to eliminate most of the incentives for
integration. 2This is particularly the case when integration is equated with strategic behavior by introducing
new barriers to entry, foreclosure of the market or price squeeze.
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It should be noted that, in many cases, vertical integration is not justified
by the desire to improve the economic efficiency in a vertical structure, but
rather by the weakening, even the elimination, of actual and potential
competitors of integrated firms1. Similarly, integration may be motivated by
the desire to weaken or crowd out the actual competitors of a firm2. Finally,
vertical integration may result in the outright foreclosure of actual competitors
through the refusal of supply by the integrated firms3.
In these cases, it seems clear that vertical integration is not motivated by
the desire to improve the economic efficiency of the vertical structure, but
rather by the increase of the monopoly power of the integrated firm at the
expense of its actual and/or potential rivals. Similarly, vertical integration
solves the negotiation problems posed by a bilateral monopoly structure
characterized by a divergence of the individual interests of the upstream
monopoly and the downstream monopsony4. However, the solution of
integration allows the realization of joint profit maximization and may solve
the problems of restriction of production and those related to the negotiations
on the intermediate product price (Scherer, 1990).
These results can be generalized, but to a lesser extent, in cases where at
least one of the vertical stages is competitive. This is the case where integration
is used by a monopoly for price discrimination between its different customers.
In fact, the problems of arbitrage, imperfect information on customer
preferences or the legal prohibition of discrimination often encourage firms to
use integration to discriminate between these customers. In this context,
integration can be a perfect substitute for the company to avoid arbitrage and
realize the benefits of discrimination (Wallace, 1937; Stigler, 1951; Perry,
1978).
Vertical integration can solve the problems caused by rationing prices
when the market is characterized by a significant difference between the actual
price and the equilibrium price (Stigler, 1951; Green, 1974). The same applies
when the market is characterized by price fluctuations resulting from possible
exogenous changes in supply and/or intermediate demand. Indeed, these
fluctuations often affect the upstream and downstream stages in the opposite
direction: an increase in the price of the intermediate good positively affects
the firm located upstream and negatively the one located at the downstream
stage. In such situations, vertical integration can be used to mitigate the
1Many authors defend the idea that vertical integration can be used by some companies to erect
new barriers to entry through increased capital costs of potential entrants (Bain, 1955;
Stigler, 1968). 2This is particularly the case where it is used to facilitate the practice of price squeeze by
reducing the profit margins of customers or suppliers of the integrated producer below the
allowable threshold. 3Vertical foreclosure is based on the leverage hypothesis that the integrated firm can use the
market power of non integrated upstream firms to reinforce its own market power in the
downstream stage (Krattenmaker & Salop, 1986; Salinger, 1988). 4In this context, the maximization of the individual profits of the two firms entails a restriction
of the exchanged quantity of the intermediate good and a consequent increase in the price of
the final good.
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negative effects of fluctuations, through the synchronization of the production
in both stages and the abstention of the integrated firm from participating in the
intermediate good market (Perry, 1982). It can also be used to take advantage
of the positive effects that can result from it through the diversification of the
incomes of the integrated firm enabled by the possibility of speculation in the
intermediate market (Perry, 1984) In addition to the problems caused by the
uncertainties of supply and/or demand, vertical integration makes it possible to
solve the difficulties posed by the asymmetrical distribution of information; in
particular, the problems of agency and the use of the information for strategic
purposes. Indeed, customers are often encouraged to conceal information
relating to the demand and the selling price of their product. This is also the
case for suppliers who conceal the cost of production and the level of supply.
In such situations, the principal has a strong incentive to vertical integration to
solve the agency problem. But at this level, the question is whether vertical
integration allows the elimination of the agency relationship, or if it only
internalizes it. In this context, the work of Arrow (1975) shows that integration
is generally capable of solving the agency problem and changing the structure
of information by preventing its use for strategic purposes. However, Crocker
(1983) shows that integration does not eliminate the agency relationship but it
requires knowledge of private information by internal audit. Nevertheless, the
conclusions of both authors clearly confirm the proposals of Williamson (1985)
and Riordan (1990) for the effects of vertical integration on the structure of
information.
The Efficiency Approach
Contrary to the arguments of the theory of monopoly, the proponents of
efficiency justify vertical integration by the will to choose the most effective
organization form1. Thus, the internalization of an activity is much more than
an arbitrage between the costs and the savings occasioned by the different
possible forms of organization. In the framework of the transaction costs
theory, vertical integration causes, both costs and savings to be taken into
account in each internalization decision2.
It also allows the achieving of significant savings related essentially to the
transaction costs, that are more important in markets with small number and
where the prevalence of uncertainty/complexity limits the rationality of agents
and increases their opportunistic propensity. These environmental and human
1This arbitrage generally allows the choice of the most economically efficient solution.
2Indeed, the internalization of an activity implies, on one hand, the increase of the size of a firm
and the consequent increase of bureaucratic costs, and on the other hand, the change of the
incentives of the members of the firm because of the transition from the market mode to that of
the internal organization. The first effect is explained by the hypothesis of decreasing returns
on management function defended by Knight (1933) and Coase (1937), and the loss of control
phenomenon advanced by Williamson (1967). The second effect, on the other hand, refers to
the difficulty of making a selective intervention and of reproducing the strong market
incentives when moving from the market mode to that of the internal organization
(Williamson, 1985) .
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factors are much more important in relationships with frequent exchange since
they further complicate the exchange process. In such context, vertical
integration or internal organization is an effective solution for coordinating the
exchange activity through the governance and coordination instruments that
differentiate it from the organization by the market. More specifically,
transaction cost theory advocates vertical integration in all exchange
relationships requiring significant investments in specific assets1. The reason
why the specific investment involves a bilateral dependence is due to the fact
that the cease of the exchange relationship would be detrimental to the different
parties. In this context, anonymous contracting is supplanted by a contractualization
where the identity of the parties is decisive. As a result, contractors find
themselves locked into a relationship with bilateral dependence, often giving rise
to opportunistic tensions and propensities.
Linked in a bilateral monopoly relationship, the contracting parties find
themselves in a strategic bargaining position for an incremental gain resulting
from any adaptation of one of the parties. Although both have interest in
making long-term adjustments permitting the maximization of joint profits,
each one will seek to capture the maximum gains at the expense of the other.
These opportunistic propensities, thus, result in costly haggling that can
dissipate all gains from the relationship. This bargaining deals, essentially, with
the additional surplus allowed by the specific investment and it is often
characterized by the attempt of a "quasi-rents expropriation" by the contractor
who has not invested in the relation (Klein, Crawford & Alchian, 1978), or a
"hold up" (Goldberg, 1976; Allain, Chambolle & Rey, 2014). Thus, the
situation of bilateral monopoly implies two fundamental effects on contracting,
namely, the difficulty of ex post sharing of gains resulted from investing in
specific assets and the ex ante incentive for the various parties to underinvest in
the exchange relationship.
As a result, the contractual form governing the bilateral monopoly
structures must maintain the optimal incentive for specific investment by
solving the problem of ex post bargaining between the different parties. In this
context, economic theory presents two different approaches:
The first considers that the cause of the problem is purely transactional,
because of the limited rationality represented by the inability of the parties
to draft full contingency contracts, and the opportunism of the party who
does not invest in the exchange relationship. Analysis in works
representing this current (Williamson, 1985; Klein, Crawford & Alchian,
1978) refers to the institutional comparison between vertical integration
and the market as solutions to the problem, and emphasizes the faculty of
integration to mitigate opportunistic behavior and to maintain investment
incentives at the optimal level.
The second refers to the incomplete contracts literature affirming that
between the two extremes, there is a series of incomplete contracts likely
1Indeed, the specificity of assets implies a "fundamental transformation" of the exchange
relationship, in that it locks the contracting parties into a situation of bilateral monopoly.
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to give the same results of vertical integration and avoiding its
disadvantages (Grossman & Hart, 1986; Holmström & Tirole, 1989; Hart
& Moore, 1990)1.
Vertical Integration in the Moroccan Manufacturing Industry: Empirical
Test
In order to check the validity of the assumptions made by the different
theories of vertical integration, we attempt to do a specific empirical study to
the Moroccan industrial sector, so as to measure the degree of integration of the
various industrial sectors and to identify the factors and effects of integration
on the performance of the Moroccan industry.
Since its independence, Morocco has adopted a development strategy
aimed at laying the foundations for an independent and dynamic national
economy. This strategy ended, however, with an economic and social crisis,
whose most significant indicators were the internal and external financial
imbalances and the worsening social disparities that marked the beginning of
the 1980s. At the industrial level, the failure of the development strategy has
resulted in the accentuation of the dualities of the public and private, on one
hand, and the formal and informal sectors on the other. In this context, the
Moroccan authorities began, as early as the second half of the 1980s, a series of
reforms including the structural adjustment program aiming at cleaning up the
national economy and improve the competitiveness of the different sectors of
production. These reforms have affected, in the first place, the fundamental
financial balances and the questioning of the role of the State in the economic
activity, at the institutional, legal, fiscal and financial level. In the industrial
field, the reforms aimed at improving the competitiveness of the sector through
the withdrawal of the State from the production activity, the deregulation of the
markets and the liberalization of domestic prices. At the external level, reforms
have focused on the progressive liberalization of foreign trade through the
substitution of tariff protection for the quota system and the promotion of
exports.
Despite these efforts, the output of the Moroccan manufacturing industry
remains quite low. Between 1980 and 1989, the average annual growth rate of
industrial production was barely above 4% and the manufacturing sector's
share of GDP hardly exceeded 18% (World Bank, 1993). This weakness was
further accentuated during the 1990s as a result of the relative liberalization of
manufacturing imports. Thus, the share of manufacturing output in GDP was
barely 16% in 1997 (Ministère du Commerce, de l‘Industrie et de l‘Artisanat,
1998, p.11). This observation clearly reflects the weakness of the industrial
tissue and the anomalies related to industrial structure and performance.
1For Grossman and Hart (1986) the two parts of the exchange relationship may rely on a third
party who can make the effective decisions. For Holmström and Tirole (1989) the comparison
of the different forms of organization depends essentially on the nature of the specific assets.
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In terms of industrial structure, the Moroccan manufacturing sector is
marked by a relatively high degree of industrial concentration and a low
mobility of capital. In fact, despite the positive evolution of the level of
concentration, industrial production remains assured by a minority of large
companies in most industrial branches. The large weight of big companies is
also reflected in the low mobility of industrial capital, due to the high level of
barriers to entry particularly in the "drinks and tobacco", "chemicals and
parachemicals" sectors. And "the products of the basic metal industry"
characterized by a relatively high rate of public participation of capital and a
high protection against import competition. These characteristics allow,
therefore, to make a useful assessment of the dynamics of the manufacturing
industry in Morocco. So, the main idea that emerges is that the process of
corporate concentration is the dominant feature of growth. The new businesses
are relatively numerous, but the emergence of new entrepreneurs is not likely
to bring competition to the existing businesses. The observable active
competition is mainly the result of the companies established and even more of
the effect of the liberalization of foreign trade. Likewise, the weakness of inter-
branch capital mobility arises from the fact that entrants are generally small
and remain handicapped by their economies of scale.
The structural characteristics of the Moroccan manufacturing industry
have a direct influence on the level and dispersion of its performance. Indeed,
the study carried out by Belghazi (1997) shows the low profitability and the
wide dispersion of margin rates and price-cost ratios in most industrial sectors.
This finding can be explained by the relative importance of small firms in the
industrial tissue. In fact, the proportion of firms producing at a loss appears to
be negatively correlated with firm size.
In parallel, the Moroccan industrial tissue is characterized by a dualism
that opposes, on one hand, high productivity companies, and on the other hand,
the low productivity ones. This allows us to identify two different behaviors:
that of companies relying on the low cost of labor and preferring intensive
processes in unskilled labor and inefficient management of the labor force, and
that of companies choosing technical solutions and grant incentive salaries in
order to maximize the productive potential of the human and material resources
mobilized.
Thus, companies of the first type spend much more human energy and
mobilize little supervision and qualified work. Refusing to substitute a work
force devalued by machines, they are content with the manufacture of a
product of poor quality. However, they can be competitively sustainable in the
local market because of low wages and tax evasion. On the other hand, they are
gradually losing their strengths on the international market because their
competitors are modernizing more and more and are introducing new
productive innovations. Companies of the second type are sometimes at the
forefront of international techniques and prefer to equip themselves with
mechanized or automated equipment to avoid the management problems posed
by a labor force that is not suited to the tasks of a modern industry.
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Overall, the flexibility of the productive apparatus seems limited. The
analysis of the dispersion of profitability reveals that the dominant trend is that
of the disparity of profit rates. Thus, despite the noticeable decrease in the level
of disparities during the period of structural adjustment, the flexibility of the
structures remains insufficient: the potential investments still face significant
barriers to entry, the size of the internal market, the difficulty to conquer new
export niches and burdensome initial investment.
Measuring the Degree of Vertical Integration in the Moroccan Manufacturing
Industry
The measurement of vertical integration poses many theoretical and
practical problems that make it difficult to study the degree of integration at the
firm level as well as at the industry level. To these various problems, it is
added the lack of adequate information on the Moroccan industrial sector,
which complicates more the task of the empirical studies in the matter.
Choice of Measure
The problem of measurement remains major in any empirical work to
study the degree of integration at the level of firms and industries. Generally, a
company is said to be vertically integrated if it meets its needs for a good by
producing it itself. In other words, the degree of integration can be expressed
by the importance of internal transfers compared to the use of the market.
However, it is often difficult to assess the importance of internal transfers. On
one hand, the accounting documents kept by the companies are unable to
provide an idea about this type of transfer, and on the other hand, this type of
information is often confidential and, therefore, it can not be made available to
people outside the firm.
In this logic, economic theory proposes many measures based on relatively
available information. This is the case of the index proposed by Chapman and
Ashton (1914) to measure the degree of integration of firms in the British
textile industry. This index was constructed on the basis of equipment used by
textile companies in the following two vertical stages: spinning and weaving.
However, this index does not reflect internal transfers since the data used
correspond to equipment inventories and not to production transferred from the
spinning stage to the weaving stage. Using a different route, Gort (1962)
proposed a measure of integration on the basis of the assignment of
employment in a firm, by distinguishing the main activity from other auxiliary
activities of the firm. However, the measure by the assignment of the job raises
the same criticisms as the previous one. The fact remains that the ratio of
Adelman (1955) is most widely used to measure the degree of integration and
that, because of its theoretical foundations and especially its construction that is
based on two economic variables relatively available (value added and
turnover). This ratio, however, has two essential limits: the first is that it can be
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influenced by other forces than vertical integration, especially the profitability
of the company; the second is sensitivity to the position of a firm in the vertical
chain. We note, finally, the emergence of numerous measures based on the
interactions and connections of the different industries by using the
intermediate consumptions given by the input-output tables. This is the case,
on one hand, of the index proposed by Maddigan (1981), which makes it
possible to measure the degree of integration at the level of the companies, and
on the second hand, that of Caves and Bradburd (1988), which retains a more
aggregate level by taking the industry as the base unit.
Due to the limitations of the vertical integration measures proposed by
economic theory, we opted for an index more suitable for a comparative
analysis. This index is inspired essentially by the Bradburd and Caves (1988)
study and measures the degree of integration of different Moroccan
manufacturing industries, using data based on classification three-digits and
two-digits of national nomenclature. Formally, the measure used can be written
as follows:
N
j
iiji
N
NbVI
1
)(
Where:
VIi: vertical integration index of industry i .
bij: Share of industry output i used by industry j .
Ni: Number of industries vertically related to the industry i .
N: Total number of industries.
The value of VIi is between 0 and 1. The more VIi tends to the unit, the
more the industry is integrated.
Results
To determine the integration index, we used data from the input-output
matrix of the 1990 Moroccan economy constructed by Bussolo and Roland-
Host (1993), in addition to data from the annual surveys of the Industry and
Commerce Ministry. Our choice for 1990 is motivated first by the availability
of the input-output table for 1990, then by the fact that the year 1990
corresponds to the beginning of the implementation of the liberalization
reforms and the restructuring of the Moroccan economy (the second wave of
the structural adjustment program). By this choice, we want to determine the
impact of these reforms on the behavior of firms that are trying to protect
themselves from the competition (the impact of the reforms on the performance
of firms and industries).
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Table 1. Breakdown of the Number of Industrial Segments by Degree of Vertical
Integration
Classes Number of
Segments % Cumulative %
[0 - 0.1 ] 49 50.00 49 50.00 [0.1 - 0.2 ] 9 9.18 58 59.18 [0.2 - 0.3 ] 12 12.24 70 71.42 [0.3 - 0.4 ] 15 15.31 85 86.73 > 0.4 13 13.27 98 100.00 Total 98 100.00 - - Note: 3-digit classification
Based on the empirical results (Table 1), we find that the Moroccan
manufacturing industries present a low average and a wide dispersion of their
degree of integration, with an average index of integration equal to 0.18. This
average is all the more nuanced by the wide dispersion of the index, which
oscillates between zero, for some branches, and 0.7 for others. However, the
distribution of the different industries, according to the degree of integration,
shows a high concentration of the latter in the slice grouping industries, with an
index less than 0.1.
The classification by the degree of integration ranks the ―textile and
leather industry‖, followed by the ―chemical and para-chemical industries‖ and
the ―metal and mechanical industries‖. We find, however, that the ―food
industry‖ remains the least integrated, followed, to a lesser extent, by the
―electrical and electronic industries‖. We note a more or less dispersion of the
integration‘s degree within the branches of a same sector, as is the case with
the ―core metal products‖, which is characterized by high capital intensity and
relatively large economies of scale, with almost complete absence of private
capital, and the ―textile and knitting products‖ marked by a less intensive
capital and a strong presence of private capital. The two branches are also
differentiated by the orientation of the markets since the production of the
former is exclusively destined to the local market, while the second is, for the
most part, for export.
Table 2. Distribution of the Number of Industrial Branches According to the
Degree of Vertical Integration
classes Number of
branches % cumulative %
[0 - 0.1 ] 8 44.44 8 44.44 [0.1 - 0.2 ] 3 16.67 11 61.11 [0.2 - 0.3 ] 2 11.11 13 72.22 [0.3 - 0.4 ] 3 16.67 16 88.89 > 0.4 2 11.11 18 100.00 Total 18 100.00 - - Note: Two-digit classification.
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The least integrated branches belong essentially to the ―agri-food
industry‖, that is characterized by private equity participation and low capital
intensity1. The food chain includes a very small number of vertical stages and
most of the production is destined directly for final consumption. This is not,
however, the case of the ―electrical and electronic industries‖, where the degree
of integration remains rather low due to the newness of this sector and the
importance of technological knowledge and the high qualification of the labor
force it requires.
Determinants and Effects of Vertical Integration on the Performance of the
Moroccan Manufacturing Industry
In order to answer the questions relating to the determinants of vertical
integration and its effects on the economic performance of firms and industries,
we present two simple econometric models to test the hypotheses formulated
by the theory of vertical integration and to verify the predictions of the theory.
The cross-sectional data used relate to the year 1990 and are mainly the annual
surveys of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The main determinants of vertical integration correspond, essentially, to
the assumptions of monopoly theory and transaction costs. These variables
reflect the effects of small numbers, asset specificity, barriers to entry, and
uncertainty. The results of the model (Table 3) show a strong correlation
between vertical integration and explanatory variables translated by values of
R² and R² adjusted.
From a statistical point of view, the relationship does not seem to be
random, because the value of the Fisher statistic is significant at a probability
threshold of less than 1%. The signs of estimated coefficients correspond to
those provided and, therefore, they cannot reject the predictions of the vertical
integration theory. This result is further supported by the values of Student's t-
statistics2. In addition, several empirical studies on the determinants of vertical
integration give results similar to ours in the measurement of risk and
uncertainty (e.g., Caves & Bradburd, 1988).
1 With the exception of the ―beverage and tobacco‖ branch, whose capital structure is,
essentially, of a public nature. 2The estimated coefficients were all significantly different from zero at thresholds below 5%,
with the exception of the uncertainty of demand variable, for which we do not find a
fundamental explanation for its non-significance.
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Table 3. Results of the Model Estimation of the Determinants of Vertical
Integration (Variable Explained: IV)
Variable Coefficient Standard
Error Standardized
Coefficient
t
P (t) Collinear
Tolerance VIF
Constant
IK H TMOR TEPCA TCMCA INCD
-16.699 3.084 4.709 -1.452 0.709
-18.239 11.588
2.843 0.406 1.080 0.457 0.295 8.307 8.799
- 0.997 0.634 -0.603 0.420 -0.256 0.162
-5.873 7.597 4.359 -3.179 2.407 -2.196 1.317
0.000 0.000 0.001 0.009 0.035 0.050 0.215
- 0.674 0.549 0.322 0.381 0.854 0.770
- 1.484 1.823 3.103 2.622 1.171 1.298
R² 0.872 R² Adjusted 0.803 F 12.535 Meaning of F 0.000
Note: IV is the vertical integration index; IK, capital intensity; H, the Herfindahl Concentration
Index ; TMOR, the minimum optimal relative size ; TEPCA, entry rate weighted by turnover;
TCMCA, the average growth rate of turnover and INCD, the demand certainty.
Thus, the results of the model estimation confirm the assumptions of the
theories of vertical integration, and show that the degree of integration of the
Moroccan manufacturing industries is explained, for the most part, by the
determinants specified by the monopoly theory and that of efficiency. The
correlation between the actual signs and those predicted by the estimators
clearly confirms the link between vertical integration, on one hand, and the
degree of concentration of the industrial branches, their capital intensity, the
level of barriers to entry, the importance of the economies of scale, the degree
of growth of the industries and the level of risk of the demand, on the other
hand.
Thus, the most integrated industrial branches are, in general, the most
concentrated, the most capitalistic and having greater mobility of capital, less
importance of economies of scale, and weak growth in demand coupled with
high sales uncertainty. Our findings suggest that the manufacturing sector is
largely influenced by market forces. This seems to be true because the study is
carried out on data relating to the year 1990, which is a period of restructuring
of the Moroccan economy marked, essentially, by the progressive liberalization
and the disengagement of the State of the productive activity. The importance
of the link between the market forces and the industrial structures in Morocco
can thus be interpreted as a signal of a progressive trend of industrial
enterprises towards the conditions of economic efficiency1.
The chosen performance criterion focuses directly on the profitability of an
industrial branch through the size of the gross operating surplus in relation to
1A priori, it seems difficult to predict the nature of the relationship between vertical integration
and the performance criteria of industrial branches. On one hand, vertical integration involves
both savings and costs, making it difficult to predict the net effect that results. On the other
hand, the choice of the criterion representing the performance implies a restriction of the global
vision on the effects of the integration, to the extent that a quantitative criterion can bring only
a partial judgment there.
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turnover. It is important for us to see the nature of the relationship between
vertical integration and the profitability of a branch, as well as the correlation
between profitability and the degree of integration.
Unlike the first model, the specification of the link between the margin
rate and the explanatory variables did not require any transformation except for
vertical integration.
Table 4. Results of the Industrial Performance Model Estimate (Variable
explained: TM)
Variable Coefficient Standard
Error Standardized
Coefficient t
Student P (t)
Collinear Tolerance VIF
Constant LnIV IK H TEPCA TMOR
-4.73 E-02 -5.72 E-03 3.070 E-05
0.188 4.666 E-03 -2.42 E-03
0.021 0.001 0.000 0.034 0.002 0.000
- -0.824 1.519 1.343 0.383 -1.905
-2.202 -4.213 4.562 5.565 2.081 -5.492
0.048 0.001 0.001 0.000 0.060 0.000
- 0.528 0.182 0.346 0.596 0.168
- 1.895 5.502 2.890 1.678 5.968
R² 0.758 R²
Adjusted 0.657
F 7.519 Meaning
of F 0.002
Note: TM is the margin rate; IV, the vertical integration index ; IK, capital intensity; H, the
concentration index of Herfindahl; TEPCA, the entry rate weighted by the turnover and TMOR,
the minimum optimal relative size.
The findings (Table 4) give relatively high values of R² and adjusted R²;
0.758 and 0.657 respectively. At this level, we can emphasize that the
unexplained part of the model may be due to the absence of the other
determinants of business profitability in the model specification, especially the
variables representing the strategies of the different firms. The value of
Fisher‘s statistic is significant at a threshold less than 1%, which means that the
link between the explained variable and the explanatory variables can not be
due to the hazard.
Similarly, estimation of the coefficients associated to explanatory variables
gives values significantly different from zero to thresholds less than 6%.
Finally, the signs of the coefficients of the control variables are in line with our
expectations. The profitability of the industrial branches seems indeed
positively correlated to the degree of concentration, the capital intensity and the
mobility of the capital, and negatively with the minimum dimension of the
companies of these branches. This confirms the conclusions regarding the
analysis of the characteristics of the Moroccan industry, according to which the
degree of concentration and the level of the barriers to entry are relatively high
and, thus, constitute an advantage for the existing enterprises and, particularly,
for those operating in relatively concentrated markets.
However, profitability has been found to be negatively correlated with the
degree of vertical integration. This shows that the average margin rate of the
industrial branches is much higher as they have a low degree of vertical
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74
integration. The most logical explanation of this result is undoubtedly linked to
the importance of the costs generated by vertical integration, particularly those
of bureaucracy and the big size. This does not mean, however, that the high
degree of vertical integration of the industrial branches is synonymous with the
economic and organizational inefficiency of these branches. In fact, the low
profitability of the most integrated industries can be explained mainly by
specific considerations to these industries. In this case, the high degree of the
integration of firms implies their greater efficiency and the vertical structure at
the expense of the high costs of vertical integration and the low profits that
result. Thus, the results show that vertical integration is often a costly strategy
that should be used only for economic reasons and organizational efficiency
which can justify the costs it generates.
Conclusion
Vertical integration is often explained by one of the following considerations:
(i) The desire of companies to maintain or enhance their market power at the
expense of actual and/or potential competitors. In this case, the vertical integration
does not fit into a logic of improving the economic efficiency. On the contrary, the
integration decision is justified by anti-competitive considerations designed to
weaken or oust the rival firms and to deter potential entrants from entering the
market. In this case, integration can be used as a means of foreclosure of rival
firms, price crushing or strengthening the barriers to entry.
Thus, improving the market power of integrated firms is generally at the
expense of actual and potential competitors and it therefore implies a deterioration
of social welfare and economic efficiency. (ii) The willingness of firms to choose
the most efficient form of organization in the coordination of production. In this
case, vertical integration is motivated, essentially, by the desire to improve the
economic efficiency, in the sense that the internalization of activities provides
substantial savings compared to the solution of the market relationship. It results,
therefore, from an arbitrage between the advantages and the disadvantages of the
different economical institutions for the sole purpose of improving efficiency. As
such, we emphasize that the choice of integration prevails, generally, in case of
market failure, in particular, in case of non-satisfaction of certain conditions of
perfect competition (such as the atomicity of operators or market transparency). In
these cases, vertical integration often implies an improvement in economic
efficiency by addressing the problems of market failure.
On the empirical level, the Moroccan manufacturing industry is essentially
characterized by the weakness and dispersion of the degree of vertical integration.
This finding is explained, on one hand, by the relatively weak weight of the
industrial sector in the Moroccan economy, and on the other hand, by the
disparities which characterize the different industries. Indeed, the industrial sector
was often relegated to second place in the priorities of the development strategies
in Morocco, which insisted more on the import-substitution and export industries,
whose main purpose was the economy of foreign exchange and the elimination of
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external deficits. This explains also the wide dispersion of the degree of vertical
integration of the Moroccan manufacturing industries. Indeed, we stress a high
degree of integration of the export-oriented branches (textile products) and those
whose production is intended to satisfy internal needs and the substitution of
imports (basic metal products). In contrast, the least integrated industries generally
correspond to basic food products and mechanical, electrical and electronic
equipment.
However, the study of the degree of vertical integration in the Moroccan
industry reveals an important correlation between the vertical integration and
market factors. In fact, the adoption of the structural adjustment program in the
mid-1980s and the policy of progressive liberalization of the Moroccan economy
have significantly improved the functioning of the industrial enterprises and
markets. Thus, the degree of integration of the industrial branches is explained,
essentially, by the basic conditions and the structures of the industrial sector, such
as, the degree of concentration, the capital intensity, the level of the barriers to the
entry, the importance of economies of scale and the growth rate of sales. These
factors also reflect the hypotheses of the main explanatory theories of vertical
integration, in particular those of monopoly and efficiency.
Our paper reveals, however, a negative correlation between the degree of
vertical integration and the profitability of the industrial firms. This confirms the
idea that integration is usually accompanied by significant costs (bureaucratic
costs, costs resulting from changes in incentives) that offset the savings that result
(savings in transaction costs, savings related to monopoly power).
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